


Just A Kiss

by dovingbird



Category: American Idol RPF
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Friendship, Post-Idol, Strong Christian References (but not shoved down your throat)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-25
Updated: 2014-01-25
Packaged: 2018-01-09 22:23:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,917
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1151508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dovingbird/pseuds/dovingbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Success isn’t really as instantaneous as Skylar Laine thought it would be after Idol. It’s been a year or two and nothing, not even a cursory offer from a small record company. But is she going to sit around and mope? Not a chance. Skylar teams up with an equally success-deprived Colton Dixon and drags him to Nashville from Murfreesboro, leaving her family and college-swamped boyfriend behind, to make her own success and to encourage Colton do to the same. They’re friends, teammates, neighbors…but there’s no telling if that’s how they’ll stay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“I still don’t know what possessed you when you decided to do this…”  
  
“Freedom,” Daddy piped up, his eyes sparkling as he squeezed his wife’s shoulder. “You know our Skylar. We’re lucky we can keep her between four walls and under a roof every night.”  
  
Skylar smiled to herself, ducking her head, and focused more intently on the pair of jeans in her hands. They were still fresh and new, and the crinkly smell of unspoiled denim and department stores would need to be washed out before she could bring herself to wear them, but the way they brought out the shape of her thighs and emphasized her favorite pair of cowboy boots meant that they needed to be included in her journey.  
  
Momma sighed heavily, like she was shoving every burden in the world to the floor, and wrapped an arm around her husband’s waist. “I’m just saying, Nashville’s half a world away.”  
  
“It’s in Tennessee, Momma, not Thailand.”  
  
“The principle’s the same,” her mom insisted. “Sweetheart, you’ve got to remember, there’re people out there, DANGEROUS people, people without God in their lives!”  
  
The familiar tones of caution and worry floated in one ear and out the other. Jesus, with how much she was going on about it, you’d think Nashville was a cesspool of rapists and muggers. Skylar had made this decision over a year ago and her mother was still drowning in her delusions that she’d change her mind at the last second.  
  
“Momma, do we gotta go over it again?”  
  
“Skylar…”  
  
“Listen to her, honey,” her dad said softly.  
  
Skylar sank down onto her bed and patted the spot beside her. At this point it was the only place not covered in clothes that needed packing, and that fact alone stirred another little thrill in the base of her stomach. But it didn’t matter right now what she was feeling. If her momma wasn’t gonna at least TRY to understand why she was doing this, the whole rest of Skylar’s life would be full of a healthy amount of guilt-tripping. “Momma…look, Idol was a great opportunity. It gave me all this exposure and a lot of contacts and all that, right? It was a dream come true. But…” She furrowed her eyebrows as she thought, rubbing the back of her neck. “…but it wasn’t enough. Okay? You’ve gotta understand that. It didn’t get me the contract I wanted. It was just the first step.”  
  
Momma sighed again. “I just don’t understand why you’ve gotta go all the way to Nashville to do music. There’s plenty of music here.”  
  
“But it’s not the same.” Skylar grabbed her mother’s hand and gave it a tight squeeze. “Nashville’s full to bursting with country music, Momma. All the labels are there. If I play my cards right, heck, I could be right there near Music Row!”  
  
Momma looked down at the floor, but didn’t speak.  
  
“It’s not that I don’t love living here. You know that’s not it. I love my friends and my house and my job, and I ESPECIALLY love being here with Joseph and  you and Daddy, but…Momma, if I don’t do this? If I don’t chase my dreams? I’m gonna spend the rest of my life wondering what I could’ve made happen.” She shook her head in wonder as gold-speckled dreams filled her mind’s eye. “That could be ME performing next year on Idol results shows. They could be talking about my record going gold or platinum. That could be me.” It took a long few seconds before Skylar noticed the silence in the air, noticed the way that her parents were watching her. Her daddy was beaming. Her momma was on the verge of tears. “Oh, Momma, please don’t cry.”  
  
“I…” Momma grabbed a tissue from the nightstand and pressed it to her face, smothering a quiet sob. “I understand. I…sweetie, I’ve never seen you look like that before, not once.” And when she dropped the tissue to her lap, even though Skylar could see it took an effort, she gave a watery smile. “All right. I’ll give you my blessing.”  
  
Skylar nearly tackled her momma to the bed as she embraced her. “Thank you, Momma!”  
  
All three of them knew that the approval was moot at this point. The first month’s rent for her apartment was paid for. The moving van was coming by the next day. It was all covered. But to hear those words, to hold them close to her heart tonight as she slept, would do Skylar a world of good.  
  
“It’s late,” her daddy said as he captured his wife’s hand and pulled her to her feet. “C’mon, let’s let Skylar finish packing.” He nudged Momma helpfully toward the door before he eyed Skylar over the top of her head. “You’ve got until eight o’ clock tomorrow to finish packing, all right? Not a second later.”  
  
“Don’t worry about me.” Skylar beamed at her parents as they headed away. “G’night.”  
  
“G’night, Nugget.”  
  
The second the door shut behind them, she tightened her fingers around her bedspread. The bright yellow and green stripes were faded now, dimmed from when she’d opened her door to find a brand new bedroom set on her fourteenth birthday, and a sinking sensation tugged at her chest as she realized that this might be the last night she would ever sleep in this bed. Tears filled her eyes before she could prepare for them. “God,” she whispered, her fingers immediately locking around the simple gold cross she wore around her neck, “keep me distracted. And keep Momma and Daddy happy when I’m gone.”  
  
Her cell phone tinkled brightly, the screen illuminating with an incoming text message, and her eyes flicked to it without hesitation. The name filling the screen made her smile, and she snatched up the phone.  
  
 _“Ready for tomorrow?”_ the screen read, and Skylar flipped onto her back, ignoring the clean clothes crumpling beneath her body as she typed furiously on the screen.  
  
 _“Me? I’m ready for anything. I just wanna know if Nashville’s ready for ME, Mr. Dixon.”_  
  
She considered getting up and returning to folding once the message was sent, but decided to test a theory as she lay there staring at the ceiling. When the phone vibrated against her stomach moments later, she considered the theory proved: if Colton Dixon had a chance to talk to someone, he’d never miss it. Skylar grinned and answered the call without even looking at the screen. “Hey, now, a girl’s gotta pack sometime.”  
  
“I know, I know, but if you’ve got time to text, you’ve got time to chat.” There was no way for Colton to hide his broad smile, even across a few hundred miles and a phone line. She could practically hear it in his words. “At least for a few minutes. How much do you have left?”  
  
She eyed the clothes pooled around her feet, humming in thought. “Another hour left, probably. Maybe more if my friends don’t leave me alone,” she teased.  
  
“Well, if you don’t wanna talk to me, then I can just hang up this phone right now, Miss Laine.”  
  
“All right, all right, I give.” She chuckled. “A couple of minutes can’t hurt. How’s your own packing coming?”  
  
“Dude, I was done, like, two days ago. I’ve been living on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches since then.”  
  
“You must REEK.”  
  
“Nah, it’s rained a couple of times since then, so that‘s kept me clean.” He was grinning again. “My clothes are pretty gross, though.”  
  
Skylar laughed appreciatively before falling into silence. Colton did the same. It was so bizarre. She hadn’t seen this kid in six months, but he still had the ability to make her think without saying a word. It was like he was reaching through the phone line, rubbing her back, loosening her tongue. She closed her eyes and for the first time to anyone she let herself entertain her worries aloud. “You ever think…we’re making the biggest mistake of our lives?”  
  
“At least once an hour,” he confessed, voice barely above a whisper. “But, you know what I figured? We’re never going to know unless we try.”  
  
“Yeah. But there’s so much that can go wrong.”  
  
“That’s why we’re gonna be neighbors,” he murmured with a smile. “Someone’s gotta keep an eye on you in the bars.”  
  
“Yeah, and someone’s gotta make sure you remember to eat!”  
  
“Hey, you’ve SEEN me eat! That’s not gonna be a problem.”  
  
Skylar rolled onto her side and eyed the clock. If it was late for HER, she knew Colton was barely keeping his eyes open. “All right, that’s it, you’re up way too late. You’re not allowed to help me carry any boxes in tomorrow. That’s for Daddy and me, got it?”  
  
“As if!”  
  
“Boy, you can barely carry a battery pack on that skinny butt of yours. I don’t wanna see what happens when you get those stick-thin legs lifting a sofa.”  
  
“Pssh. I’ll pout at you all day until you change your mind.”  
  
“All right, fine, I’ll change my mind when all that’s left to carry in’s my purse.”  
  
He paused. “…you’re not gonna let me help with the sofa, but you’d force me to take care of your purse? Geez, Skylar, that thing weighs as much as my apartment here in Murfreesboro!”  
  
She laughed. “Yeah, yeah. I was thinking of paying for dinner tomorrow, but you just see if I do.”  
  
“…I take it back.”  
  
“Good man.” She smiled again as she sat up. “All right, I’ve gotta finish packing and YOU’VE gotta sleep.”  
  
“Yeah, you’re right. See you tomorrow. Three o’ clock outside your apartment?”  
  
“Not a minute later, neighbor.”  
  
She hung up the phone and hugged it to her chest, feeling her heart pounding just beneath her wrist. Tonight was her last night in this bed. But tomorrow…tomorrow was full of infinite possibilities. Tomorrow she’d be sleeping on an old studio bed, sharing her bedroom with a stove and fridge. She’d have a coffee table for a dining room table, situated right in front of her tiny love seat. She’d have a guitar tucked in the corner, just waiting for dozens of songwriting nights out in bars with Colton. Yes, she could see it all right there, right in front of her eyes. This time, her heart didn’t pound with regret and sadness. It beat furiously with anticipation.

\-----

“It’s not that much farther, is it?” Skylar asked as she peered from the back seat. Momma held the directions in her hand, freshly printed that morning, and she studied them with anxiety.  
  
“Just a few more exits to go.”  
  
Skylar’s eyes drifted to the road signs on the Interstate instead, trying desperately to memorize each one, to remember what new areas awaited her here in Nashville. A number of colleges beckoned to her, reminding her that she was barely nineteen, that while thousands of her peers were flocking here for education she was taking the road less traveled.  
  
“All right, here, it’s the next exit,” Momma announced.  
  
If it was possible to deplete the atmosphere of all its oxygen in one sharp, thick gasp, Skylar certainly tried her best. “Are you serious?!”  
  
“Calm down, Nugget,” Daddy laughed. “We’ve still gotta remember where this complex of yours is.”  
  
“I don’t think I could ever forget,” she insisted, digging her fingers into the moving van seats. Sure enough, her heart thudded more and more in excitement with each turn that they took. She’d dreamed of them all over the past two weeks, every last one, until she could take the path with her eyes closed.  
  
“Listen, Skylar,” Momma began. “Your daddy and I’ve been discussing it, and…well, there’s really no good time to do this, but we…want you to have something.” She suddenly thrust an envelope over her shoulder, and Skylar stared at it with wide eyes.  
  
“What is it?”  
  
“Open it and find out,” her daddy said with a smile.  
  
“But ya’ll have given me so much!” She peeled the envelope open and her heart leaped into her throat when she saw flashes of green staring back at her. “Oh, Momma, Daddy, you didn’t!”  
  
Five crisp one hundred dollar bills stared up at her, full of promise, full of expectation. “We want you to do something special with it,” Daddy said. “Spoil yourself. Go on a shopping trip. Get yourself a nice dining room table. I don’t know. Whatever you want.”  
  
Skylar smiled at them both through the rear view mirror and promised herself she wasn’t going to cry. Not yet. “Thank you. I can’t tell you enough.”  
  
“You’re not gonna have much time left,” Momma announced, pointing through the front windshield. “Look at that. We’re close.”  
  
When they took that last turn, the one that took them past the large, grand, historical houses and into the apartment complex, she squealed. “There!” Skylar wasn’t sure if she was more excited about the familiar apartment building or the floppy brown mohawk she saw standing in front of it.  
  
The second Colton spotted the van, a broad grin spread across his lips, and he hooked one thumb in his belt loops as he rose onto his tiptoes and waved with the other hand. As if he needed the extra height for them to see him! “Well, the boy’s certainly eager,” Momma said, chuckling.  
  
“Momma, that’s what Nashville DOES to people! I’m telling you!” She was already reaching for her seatbelt before Daddy even parked the van. “This is a great place!”  
  
Momma was silent, simply giving a soft hum as she folded the directions and slid them into the glove compartment.  
  
As soon as the van came to a stop, Skylar flung the door open and bounded out of the cab. “Neighbor!”  
  
“Hello!” When Skylar threw herself into Colton’s arms he caught her and swung her through the air, both of them laughing. “Boy, you’re a sight for sore eyes!”  
  
“I’ll say.” As soon as her feet were firmly planted on the ground she crushed him in another hug. “Y’know, I take everything back. Any guy that can swing me around like that’s strong enough to carry a TRUCK, much less a couch.”  
  
“Pssh, you’re not that bad.” Colton noogied her, locking his arm around her neck when she tried to escape. “All right, come on, let’s see what we’ve got to move.”  
  
He led her back toward her parents, her daddy laughing and her momma looking a little traumatized at the sight of her daughter being airborne moments before. “Pleasure seeing you again, Colton,” Daddy managed, his cheeks flushed in amusement.  
  
Colton grinned and extended his hand, giving Daddy’s a firm shake. “Pleasure’s all mine, Mr. Laine, Mrs. Laine.”  
  
Daddy grinned. “I hope you’re ready for the tears that’re gonna be flowing from this one here.” He thumbed toward Momma, arching his eyebrows at her. “We’ve got at least ten Kleenex boxes in the backseat.”  
  
“Oh, hush!” She slapped him on the chest, her own blush rising from embarrassment. “It’s not every day you move your daughter however many hundreds of miles away, you know.”  
  
“Don’t I know it. But it’s gonna be a good night tonight! C’mon, let’s get started.”  
  
Daddy and Momma trailed away to the van, working at opening the trailer, but Skylar and Colton lingered on the edge of the sidewalk, watching the parents. “How’re they holding up?” Colton asked softly.  
  
“Better than I expected, actually. Momma’s only cried the once. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if Daddy started up the waterworks first tomorrow when they have to leave.”  
  
They looked at each other, and grins spread across their faces almost immediately. “You’ll be happy to know I’ve already got a few songwriting nights spotted not too far from here.”  
  
“Yeah?” Skylar blinked. “Where at?”  
  
“Here and there. I’ll show you when we get you all settled in. Trust me, you’re not gonna want to move for a day after we get done here.”  
  
She smiled. “You’re really overestimating just how much stuff I’m bringing with me.”  
  
“Really?” His eyes widened. “I thought your parents…?”  
  
Skylar waved his words off, eyes drifting to the moving van. “Told them I wanted to get settled and build from there. No use in getting an apartment and filling it with stuff I’m not gonna use. There’ll be time to decorate it and stuff later.”  
  
“Oh. Huh.” Colton scratched the back of his head. “Man, you’re a weird girl.”  
  
“Shut up,” she said with a laugh, elbowing him in the side. “Don’t let Joseph hear you say that.”  
  
He chuckled too, but his laugh died slowly. “…how’s he feeling about it all?”  
  
Her voice was softer when she replied, barely a murmur. “I mean, he’s trying his best to support me, but I know he wishes he could’ve helped move me in.”  
  
“What’s he doing?”  
  
“Back to school. He’s gonna come visit me the first long weekend he gets, but right now it’s kind of hard, y’know? Starting out at college, trying to make sense of that mess of syllabuses, all of that.”  
  
Colton nodded. “…well, I’ll take care of you until he gets here.” He smiled again, draping his arm companionably around her shoulders. “Don’t really want a pissed-off boyfriend coming after me if you start losing weight or get robbed or something.”  
  
Skylar answered his smile with a grin of her own, giving his waist a quick squeeze, before she led him to the moving truck. “I’ll hold you to that.”  
  
As the foursome teamed up and lassoed the furniture and boxes into submission, Skylar let her thoughts run free and her mouth reply on autopilot. Joseph. She’d honestly been trying her hardest to think about him as little as possible during this entire move, trying to pretend that Mississippi wasn’t over six hours away, trying to pretend that their relationship wasn’t still in question at this point.  
  
She’d thought she was strong enough to call it off a year ago. She really did. She made it almost six months, in fact. But when it came right down to it, Skylar was only strong in the ways that didn’t seem to matter. She was strong enough to say goodbye to her parents, even though she wouldn’t see them again for ages. She was strong enough to throw a middle finger up at college and run after her music with all her heart. But she wasn’t strong enough to be alone on the long Mississippi summer nights, knowing that Joseph might already have someone else in his life.  
  
“Skylar?”  
  
She spun around and stared at Colton and Daddy, each carrying half of her loveseat. “What?”  
  
“Where do you want this, honey?” Her daddy’s face was remarkably calm, but Colton looked a little strained, the same as his small biceps peeking out beneath his white v-neck t-shirt. Skylar immediately snapped to attention and returned to directing.  
  
Joseph wasn’t here carrying that sofa, so Joseph could wait for a little while. He could wait until her first night alone here, when he wasn’t busy with his classes or his textbooks or his Mississippi State friends, when she wasn’t busy with unpacking or building connections or crying on Colton’s shoulder.  
  
He could keep himself busy? Well, so could Skylar.


	2. Chapter 2

Cars drove by. A siren sounded. Wildebeest stampeded through the upstairs apartment and left havoc in their wake. And, through it all, Skylar stared wide-eyed at the ceiling, mouth dry and fingers agitated.  
  
She wet her lips and turned her head to stare at the window shades, where passing headlights threatened to blind her. After those first few nights of homesickness in the Idol mansion, it had receded through the help of Hollie’s nigh on constant chatter. But now she didn’t have that. For the first time, she realized, she was alone, no one to turn to.  
  
Her fingers itched for her cell phone, but by the time she had it in her hands she didn’t have a clue what to do. It was 1:27 in the morning. Momma and Daddy were out of the question, even if they WERE awake. She considered Hollie, but they hadn’t talked in two weeks. Bothering her at this time of night seemed foolish. She scrolled through her phone book and paused halfway down. Joseph. She hesitated for a long few seconds before starting the call.  
  
The phone rang three times, and just as she was about to hang up she heard a sleepy, slurred voice. “Hello?”  
  
“Hey, baby.”  
  
“Skylar.” She could hear him fumbling for his alarm clock. “Babe, it’s, like, 1:30 in the morning.”  
  
“I know, but-”  
  
“Are you okay?” Those protective boyfriend instincts kicked in just a moment too late. Skylar was already backpedaling.  
  
“Yeah, I-I’m fine. I just…wanted to check on you. How’re you?”  
  
“…I’m sleeping.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
“Do you…” His head was still fuzzy. She felt her throat going raw in frustration. “…do you wanna talk?”  
  
“No. No, I was about to go to sleep too. I love you.”  
  
“Love you too. Call me tomorrow.”  
  
At this rate she’d sleep through the whole day. “Okay. Bye.”  
  
He hung up, and Skylar curled more intently into herself. No parents, no girlfriends, no boyfriend, none of that to rely on right now. Just herself.  
  
No. She felt the cool metal of her cross dip into the cleft between her breasts. No, I’ve got You too. A heavy sigh nearly lifted her off the bed. As her fingers wrapped around the symbol of her faith, she felt her heart quiver with loneliness. Come down here, Father, and keep me company. Don’t let me be alone. Not tonight.  
  
Her phone buzzed. “You okay?” the screen asked.  
  
She typed back. “Yeah. Why?”  
  
“Your light’s really bright.”  
  
Skylar smiled. The ever-observant Colton Dixon. “I can’t sleep.”  
  
That time, no response. She sighed. Was even Colton falling asleep on her tonight? This was a mistake, all of it. If she couldn’t even fall asleep by herself, how was she supposed to play that she was an adult?  
  
She jolted. Someone was pounding at the door, seriously? She grabbed her bathrobe and wrapped it around herself, heart pounding. It was a robber. It was a terrorist. It was an ex-boyfriend. Why hadn’t she bought herself some mace when she had the chance?!  
  
Skylar peered through the peephole and froze at the sight of a floppy mohawk and tired eyes. She flung the door open. “Colton?”  
  
“Hey.” He smiled blearily at her. “Can I come in?”  
  
She stared at him for so long that he began rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “Y-yeah, sure!” She stepped back and ushered him inside like a wayward lamb.  
  
Colton hooked his fingers in the waistband of his baggy plaid pajama pants, looking around the room. “I thought you’d be unpacking if you couldn’t sleep.”  
  
She snorted. “I’m not that organized, Dixon, not this late.”  
  
He nodded. Somewhere in his examination, he ended up perched on the arm of her loveseat. “Forgive me for taking so long notice you weren’t sleeping?”  
  
“Just this once.” Skylar plopped down beside him and sighed, staring up at the ceiling. “Were you sleeping?”  
  
He nodded again.  
  
“Forgive me for keeping you up?”  
  
“Just this once,” he teasingly repeated. When she met his eyes, they were sparkling in amusement. “I woke up a few minutes ago and laid there for a few minutes, and for some reason I started wondering how you were sleeping. So I had to check.”  
  
For a moment, she considered how to respond. Was she supposed to blush in embarrassment? Hit him for his forwardness? They might be friends, but were they close enough that he could say something like that, imply that he was thinking about her late into the night instead of some other girl? But then she felt the tension in her shoulders relax, and she expelled the rest of her stress with a faint sigh. He was just Colton. Colton never had any ulterior motives. If she was curious about how she was supposed to respond, she was free to ask, and she knew he’d never judge her for it. “Why’s that?”  
  
He shrugged. “When we were in the mansion, way back in the beginning, I remembered you talking to Hollie about how you were having trouble sleeping. Same thing on tour. I didn’t know if it was nerves or what, but I figured there had to be some pattern.” He slid past her and sat on the loveseat as well. “So…what is it?”  
  
“The pattern?”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
She pulled her legs to her chest and wrapped her arms around them, resting her chin on her kneecaps. “I mean…it’s kind of childish, I guess, but…I get homesick. Always have.” She chuckled. “I couldn’t even go on sleepovers when I was a kid. I’d get too scared, and I’d have to call my mom and make her pick me up. High school got a little better, but it was still rough. I spent most of those nights playing around on my iPod while everyone else was sleeping, maybe getting some homework done, but never having any fun.”  
  
Colton waited for a long moment, waiting for her to continue, but when she didn’t he tilted his head to the side. “So you’re homesick?”  
  
“Maybe a little.” She forced a smile as she tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear. “But it’s no big deal. I’ll get over it in a few days.”  
  
“And until you do, you’ve got your friendly neighborhood Colton to take care of you.”  
  
She laughed and looked to the side, hoping he didn’t see the embarrassment blooming in her cheeks. “And here I took you for a Batman fan.”  
  
“Oh man, don’t get me wrong, he’s the best, but you can’t go wrong with a little Spider-Man in your life.” He grinned and locked his hands behind his neck. “I’m actually pretty impressed you caught the reference. Nice going.” And then he stood up. “Well. No sense in letting tonight go to waste. You want some help unpacking?”  
  
“You don’t have to-”  
  
“I want to.” He grinned. “You should’ve seen me when all my friends were going off to MTSU. I was like their personal moving van or whatever. I freaking love doing stuff like that.”  
  
“MTSU?”  
  
“Middle Tennessee State University,” he said, kneeling beside one of the boxes and examining the tape that secured it shut. “A college down in Murfreesboro. You got a knife, some scissors, something?”  
  
“Yeah, somewhere.” As Skylar went to the kitchen nook in search of them, she listened to Colton continue talking.  
  
“It’s weird being here in Nashville. The last time I was up here was a few years ago, back in 2010. May, if I remember right. Phew.” He shook his head. “That was a rough trip. I came down here to hang out with a friend of mine down in college, just down the road at Lipscomb University, and you wouldn’t believe it. The whole darn town flooded.”  
  
“You’re kidding!” Her eyes widened as she knelt beside him and offered a steak knife. “Were you okay?”  
  
“Yep. Our area was lucky enough to miss the worst of it. But it was a sorry stay after that. Water was cut off, electricity was mostly down…” His words trailed off as he looked over at her, followed by a slow grin. “Are you okay?”  
  
She hadn’t realized her mouth was still hanging open, her eyes wide. “Yeah, I-I just…” She shook her head with a soft laugh. “This is a landlocked state.”  
  
“Got a lot of rivers, though.” It was clear there was something else on her mind, Colton wisely kept his mouth shut.  
  
“…do you think…something like that’s gonna happen again?” While we’re here?  
  
“Hey.” He rubbed her shoulder, half his mouth quirking in a grin. “Don’t worry. If something like that DOES happen again, unlikely as it is, I’ll carry you to safety through the water myself.” He touched his other hand to his chest, head held high and noble even as he spoke teasingly. “You shouldn’t expect anything less from Colton Dixon.”  
  
No, she realized, she shouldn’t. He was a true gentleman, a knight in his own way, and her heart filled with gratitude as she studied his face for a long moment. If both of their apartments ever lit on fire, he’d throw his own possessions to the wind just to make sure she was safe first. Her heart came to a sudden stop. Could she honestly say the same?  
  
Colton seemed to realize the moment for teasing had passed, and he dipped his head quietly with a small smile. “Anyway. Unpacking, right?”  
  
“Right,” she said softly. Colton cut through the tape, and Skylar returned to her thoughts. Colton was a paragon of virtue, she decided, someone who would show up and move his friends into college for no reason, who would stay with his friend for a few days longer after a flood just to make sure he was on his feet and safe, who would show up at his neighbor’s apartment at some unspeakable hour in the morning just because she was struggling with sleeplessness.  
  
Colton was a paragon, all right. And Skylar was determined to become someone who could deserve to be his friend.


	3. Chapter 3

“Sightseeing, Colton?”  
  
“Yeah!”  
  
“Do we have time for this?”  
  
He chuckled. “What else do you propose we do?”  
  
“I don’t know…practice? Write songs?”  
  
“Ah, but what are we supposed to write about if we can’t find anything that stirs our souls?”  
  
Frustration welled up inside of Skylar as she pouted toward the window. They were in Colton’s Jeep at the moment, and while the driver was merrily guiding them down side roads and taking more turns than Skylar would ever be able to follow, she was trying her best to hold her tongue out of respect for her friend.  
  
Three days. They’d been here three days, and Colton still hadn’t told her about these songwriting nights he’d researched before she got here. She still couldn’t figure out his motives behind not telling her. They’d made a pact. After saving up enough money through their performances after Idol, they’d sit on most of it until they needed to pay bills. They’d go a few months unemployed and throw themselves into their music. If they still hadn’t received the attention they wanted then, they’d be forced to pick up some kind of job, probably serving at one of Nashville’s many restaurants with the rest of the musical hopefuls.  
  
God willing, Skylar and Colton would be luckier than the rest of them.  
  
“Come on, cheer up, Laine,” Colton teased, drumming his fingers against his steering wheel as they waited at a light. “Just look around you. Look at all the houses. Enjoy yourself.”  
  
Her gaze flicked from one house to the next, her eyes widening a little with each one she took in. “Dude.”  
  
“I know, right?”  
  
“These people make bank!”  
  
He laughed. “You just wait. One day we’ll be neighbors again, in shiny houses like that.”  
  
She shook her head in wonder, her fingers absently playing with the design on her denim skirt. She’d heard a lot about Nashville, from its position as the capital of country music to its reputation as the Athens of the South, what with its enormous amount of colleges. But these houses, they surprised her even further. They were enormous, most of them clearly having quite a bit of history in their many years of age, with great hulking pillars, giant porches, fountains, even elaborate and ornate gates. “Nashville surprises me more and more every day,” she confessed.  
  
“Man, I’ve lived in Tennessee all my life, and this place STILL surprises me.”  
  
“Where are we going, anyway?” she asked, taking in a particularly vibrant garden as they drove past it.  
  
“To the tallest steeple around,” he said, another grin on his lips.  
  
Skylar blinked. “We’re going to a church?”  
  
“Do you wanna be a heathen?” he teased.  
  
“I mean, no, but it’s like…Tuesday.”  
  
Colton shrugged, leaning his elbow out his open window. “It’s got some memories for me.”  
  
That cryptic statement led the both of them to contemplative silence. Skylar studied Colton’s profile  with a small frown, furrowing her eyebrows. She was more and more surprised by just how little she knew about him as every day passed. Equally surprising was the fact that she wanted to learn everything about him that she possibly could. He fascinated her, for better or for worse.  
  
“There it is.”  
  
She looked up, eyes dancing past a cheerful daycare before finally finding the church. “Oh.” Her eyes widened. When he called it a tall steeple, he wasn’t kidding. “What is it?”  
  
“…a church?”  
  
He earned himself a smack for that.  
  
Woodmont Christian Church wasn’t the biggest church she’d ever seen, but that steeple, that one right there, made her head hurt just to stare up at it. “Why are we here?” she asked.  
  
“C’mon.” Colton walked beside her to the door and opened it. She blinked. Back home if they left a church unlocked, it’d probably be robbed in no time. As he gently nudged her inside, she looked around. Plush carpet cushioned her feet, and they walked down the aisle between thick wooden pews that drew her eye to the bright white choir lofts behind the altar and podium. “When I was in high school,” Colton began softly, his voice dropped to a whisper, “my youth group did a joint mission trip with Woodmont.” Skylar’s eyes drifted around the stained glass windows as he continued. “Simple stuff. We worked in the soup kitchen downtown. Helped out in a homeless ministry here, Room at the Inn. Painted houses. Y’know, things like that. But it’s here, right here, right in this sanctuary that I had my first real encounter with God.”  
  
Skylar looked up at him with wide eyes. “Seriously?”  
  
“Mm-hmm.” His face was fond, but distant, focused on years before. “We slept at the church, in the youth room, every night, and one night I just…couldn’t sleep. Laid there wide awake and stared at the ceiling. Listened to my friends snoring.“ He smiled. “But I kind of felt like I was missing something. That whole trip, I was missing this one thing, and I couldn’t figure out what it was. So I went for a walk. And that walk led me here.” He paused beside the piano and rested his fingers on the worn ivory keys.  
  
For a time he was silent, and Skylar took advantage of that time to study him. His head was hung and his shoulders lax, but his hand was curled into a fist. As he softly sighed, she watched his hand open, as if it was releasing the cares that he held within it.  
  
“I sat down.” He sat. “And I just…started playing. I don’t know what it was. Just chords. Just things that led into each other.” He began to play softly, long and lean fingers pressing into the keys in the shape of vaguely familiar chords. They wrapped around her, lush and warm, full of sevenths and tonality, like she was relaxing beneath a tree on a warm summer day with a jazz band providing her a soundtrack. “But I started feeling so frustrated. I couldn’t make the music I wanted to. I couldn’t do ANYTHING I wanted to. I had all this stuff in my head that I wanted to create, that I wanted to do, but my fingers felt so…unprepared for the task.” He shook his head, the chords falling into a bare whisper of sound. “It didn’t make sense, I said, that God would give me a love for music and then make me inadequate when it came to trying to create it. And then…” He smiled. “…I think I made Him mad.”  
  
Skylar tilted her head to the side, kneeling beside the piano.  
  
“I couldn’t move, Skylar. I was just…struck by something. I was lucky that I could even breathe, I felt so snagged by it. My fingers got clumsy and hit the most awful chord I’d ever heard in my life, and all at once, I just felt this heat course over me. Just, BAM. Like a shockwave. And then I heard Him speak. I swear to God, I did. He just said…’Slow down. Slow yourself down. And feel.’”  
  
“What did He mean?”  
  
Colton sat there, holding out a chord until it faded into nothingness. “…I’d spent that entire mission trip with my mind on my music. On looking cool. On a cute girl. On everything but Him. Then that girl, she started snuggling up to this other guy in the van on the way to our assignments. Me trying to look cool just made me look like an idiot. And then I got so focused on my music that night, on trying to make something perfect when I couldn‘t even impress a girl or my friends, that I didn’t even try to figure out why I was wide awake in the first place. Me, Skylar, who goes to bed every night at like eight o’ clock and sleeps through the night without even waking up to pee since I was five years old, I was wide awake for no reason, and I didn’t even care why!” He laughed. “I thought too much. I didn’t let myself feel.”  
  
She wrinkled her brow a little more and rubbed the back of her neck. “I-I don’t know if I get it.”  
  
He looked down and favored her with a smile. “When I think too much, when I get focused on…logic or the stuff on the surface or any of that, I’m not focusing on God. I’m focusing on myself. My own intellect. Looking good. Whatever. But the instant I slow down and start listening to my heart, start FEELING…everything falls into place.”  
  
She nodded slowly. “And did it?”  
  
“The girl got with the other guy. My Youth Minister trusted me a little less because of all that stuff I did to look cool. And all the songs I wrote that year sucked.”  
  
“…oh.”  
  
“And then a year later I found my first real mentor, I made an impact on Idol during the first go around, and God showed me exactly what I need to do to attract the kind of girl I actually want to be with.” He shrugged. “When God grabs a hold of you, the change isn’t always instantaneous. That’s what He taught me. Sometimes you’ve just…gotta be faithful. Hope for the best. Stick it out. And when you do that? The rewards are endless.”  
  
Jesus Christ, this man was just…he shouldn’t exist. He shouldn’t. She shook her head with a soft, breathless laugh. “Colton, you…you…”  
  
“What?”  
  
“…you surprise me every day.”  
  
He smiled, wrinkles around his eyes crinkling in pleasure. “In a good way, I hope.”  
  
She nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak further.  
  
Colton began to play again, simple rolling chords, and she recognized the hymn almost immediately. When he started to sing, her eyes were already closed, floating in the lyrics. “How deep the Father’s love for us, how vast beyond all measure, that He should give His only Son to make a wretch His treasure. How great the pain of searing loss! The Father turns His face away as wounds which mar the Chosen One bring many sons to glory.”  
  
Skylar tilted forward, resting her forehead against the hard wood of the piano leg, and felt the vibration of the chords seep through her flesh and into her mind. She felt so relaxed right now, just listening to Colton, just hearing him praise God. Every part of her life was about to take a completely different turn, she realized. She was living next door to the most godly man she’d ever met in her life. She was about to attack the Nashville music circuit with everything she had. And Colton was going to be by her side the whole time.  
  
She exhaled, her fingers pulling fistfuls of denim into her palms. When she imagined a future back in high school, it was with Joseph. He was by her side. He filled her life. He celebrated her music and encouraged her to pursue it. And now here she was, and Joseph was back in Mississippi. Her life was filled by the music of another.  
  
Tears that she didn’t understand pricked at her eyes, and when Colton repeated the final verse, she softly joined him in choked harmony. “I will not boast in anything: no gifts, no power, no wisdom. But I will boast in Jesus Christ, His death, and resurrection. Why should I gain from His reward? I cannot give an answer. But this I know with all my heart: His wounds have paid my ransom.”  
  
The very air trembled as Colton pressed forth in the chords, folding them into each other, and when Skylar leaned over and rested her head against his bony thigh, he only paused in the bass harmonies to rest his hand gently against her hair. When he let his foot hold down the piano’s pedal to let the final chord slowly die, Skylar felt so full that she didn’t know what to do with herself.  
  
Colton, as always, had an answer. “See?” he said with a teasing lilt. “I can help even the worst heathens find their way back.”  
  
“Oh, hush.” She smacked his leg and tried to hold back her giggle, knowing it would only encourage him, but it was a lost cause. The two laughed for long minutes, exhilarated and giddy, and, she realized in surprise, she wouldn’t have ever wanted this moment with any other person.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated for language and a robbery.

There was a long list of songwriting nights in front of her, one that made her head ache with no warning, and Skylar sighed as she rubbed at her temple. “It’s just so much, Joe.”  
  
Joseph hummed in sympathy, but it didn’t hide the sound of flipping pages on the other end of the line. “I’m not surprised. He seems pretty organized.”  
  
She snorted. “You didn’t see his room during Idol.” They were always given warning when there would be cameras anywhere near the mansion, of course, and had enough staff milling around putting their messes to rights, but Colton always managed to have a shirt left out or a dirty bowl in the sink no matter how clean he tried to keep things.  
  
“Maybe this is more important to him than a clean room?”  
  
She considered this, her hand sliding from her temple to rub her cheek in thought. It was possible. There were countless restaurants, bars, even a hotel, down the page, each with their own days, times, and notes written beside them. Colton had been busy. “You’re probably right. It‘s just…” She shook her head. “I feel so unprepared. Half of these are things you have to audition for, and I’m pretty sure you’ve gotta know the right people to get an in, and-”  
  
“Sky, if he can get this enormous list ready for you, I’m pretty sure he’s already started getting your names out there. Don’t worry about it.”  
  
“We’re doing completely different things, though,” she reminded him. “I’m country. He’s Christian.”  
  
“That reminds me.” A heavy book shut on the other side of the line, and Skylar listened as he opened another one. “Just how big is the Christian music market in Nashville anyway?”  
  
“Oh, huge. They’ve got the Dove Awards down here. It’s like Christian music’s Grammy’s.”  
  
“Huh.” More pages flipping. “Well, that’s good.”  
  
“Mm-hmm.” The next Open Mic night was in two days, at Bluebird Café on Monday night. She wondered if she’d be able to get everything together in that span of time. “So, umm…what’re you working on?”  
  
“Typical Humanities stuff. It’s a waste of time. I’ve gotta get this comparative essay done about different Gothic literature books. Got five thousand words left to go.”  
  
“When’s it due?”  
  
“I got an extension to tomorrow at 8am.”  
  
“Jesus, Joseph!”  
  
“I know, I know, I’ve already heard enough of it from my mom. Don’t need you reminding me too,” he snapped.  
  
Skylar fell silent, biting her lips into a thin line. It wasn’t like she could give him advice. After all, she was the one floating around down here, doing what everyone else would remind her was the dumb choice instead of college. She gave him a long few moments of quiet, sufficient time for him to apologize for his attitude if he so chose, before extending the olive branch. “Do you want me to go so you can focus better?”  
  
“No.” Joseph’s voice was softer now, though not repentant. “You’re my good luck charm, Skylar, you know that. Maybe you’ll help me get it done faster.”  
  
“Can you tell me what you’re writing about? It might help.”  
  
Joseph immediately began telling her about plots and characters and theories, so quickly it made her head spin. She settled back against her loveseat and let her eyes drift back to the list before her, shoving a thick chunk of hair behind her ear.  
  
This wasn’t how she imagined spending her Saturday nights in Nashville: her ear full of her boyfriend’s homework and her mind panicking about open mic nights and writer’s nights all around the city. She’d pictured herself in some nice jeans and boots as she hung around the Wildhorse Saloon, not in the grungiest pair of shorts and tank top she owned just trying to stay cool. Mississippi was miserable in the summer, but Nashville? She groaned softly and wiped her brow again.  
  
“You okay, Sky?”  
  
She sat at attention again, eyes widening. “Yeah, sorry. Just thinking about the heat here. It’s like three hundred degrees.”  
  
Joseph was quiet for a long moment. “That sucks.” And then he cleared his throat. “I think I’ve finally got my outline figured out, and I need both hands for my keyboard. We’ll talk again tomorrow?”  
  
“Yeah.” She furrowed her eyebrows, a strange combination of disappointment and relief settling in the base of her stomach. “Are you all right?”  
  
“Oh, I’m fantastic. Just gotta get this essay done.”  
  
He didn’t sound convincing. Skylar rubbed her arm as she curled her legs up to her chest. “Okay. I love you, baby.”  
  
“Love you too.”  
  
The phone clicked off, and Skylar stared at the receiver for a few moments of silence before sighing and setting it aside.  
  
Her boyfriend was doing something for himself. He was going to college. He was writing essays. He was being a productive human being. And at ten o’clock on a Saturday night, Skylar was sitting inside, festering, becoming nothing more than a stain on her couch.  
  
That was it, she decided. Enough of the heat sapping her soul. She would go out, and she would meet people, and it would be wonderful.  
  
She picked up her phone and toyed with the idea of calling Colton, but God help that poor boy, he was an old man stuck in a twenty-year-old body. He’d probably been asleep for a few hours now. She sighed and rested her head on the back of her couch. She considered her options for a few seconds before pulling herself to her feet and going to her closet.  
  
Clothes were donned, makeup was consulted, and a taxi was contacted, and she strolled outside to wait for it on the sidewalk. She tipped her head back and studied the stars above her, breathing in the thick humidity that wrapped itself around her like a heated blanket. This wasn’t how she pictured her first night going out. She always imagined Colton by her side, she realized, the two of them sipping some iced teas while they watched a band play, her coaxing him onto the dance floor for a little line dancing. He’d put up a fight and pretend to be concerned about appearances and all, but once she got him going, he’d be a natural, and the two would end up having the time of their lives together.  
  
Her eyes drifted to his apartment. His windows were all dark. The boy was dead to the world.  
  
Next time, she decided. Next time, she’d make him stay up, and they’d go together to see Nashville in all its glory.  
  
That taxi still wasn’t here. She furrowed her eyebrows and looked toward the main road, where cars whizzed past and forth like it was still the afternoon rush hour. Would the taxi expect her over there? She didn’t want to take any chances. Skylar took herself down to the main road, her boots clicking a little tune on the sidewalk.  
  
As she walked, her thoughts kicked into overtime. Did she really want to go to a bar by herself? Her, an attractive nineteen-year-old woman with no defenses if any drunk guys decided they wanted to hang all over her? No wingman to speak of? And would Colton be a little offended if he found out he went out on the town for the first time by herself? He was the native Tennessean, after all, the guy who knew Nashville like the back of his hand. He had things he wanted to show her, sights he wanted her to see. He rhapsodized about naked statues that the Baptists clothed when they were feeling persnickety, a museum made out of an old train station, a full-size replica of an ancient Greek temple. His tastes led to culture. He wanted to show her the finer things first, as if it would make her fall in love with Nashville all the more, as if she wasn’t already hopelessly head-over-heels for this place.  
  
She’d wait. She’d wait for him, for when they could go out together. For the moment, she saw a Steak & Shake right down the way, and her entire being immediately called out for a milkshake. She chuckled as she continued down the street. Here she was, trying to pretend she was all grown-up, thinking about going to a bar, and when it came right down to it, she was still just a kid that wanted some ice cream.  
  
She purchased a chocolate milkshake to-go and took herself back outside, following her instincts. They led her to a nearby lake, one that took her breath away with the sheer beauty of the moon twinkling just on the surface. The stars were far harder to see, shrouded in light pollution as they were, but it was a gorgeous scene nonetheless, and Skylar dropped onto a bench to better observe it.  
  
This was perfect, she decided. She didn’t need a bar. She didn’t need to be surrounded by smoke and loud music and strangers. No, she could just be here, with her milkshake and the moon, drowning in the beauty of her city.  
  
Something bumped into her shoulder, and she sat up straighter, starting to turn her head. “Don’t move, or I’ll shoot.”  
  
The milkshake fell to the ground.  
  
“Listen to me, sweetheart,” the gruff voice growled as the gun settled itself between her shoulder blades. “Hand over your wallet, right there, right over your shoulder.”  
  
“P-please don’t-”  
  
“Give me the fucking wallet!” he hissed.  
  
She scrambled for her purse, eyes blurred in tears, her hands shaking so hard she couldn’t grab a damn thing even if she tried. “I-I-”  
  
“You say one more word, and you’re dead!”  
  
Leather. She felt leather. She ripped her wallet out of her purse and pressed it over her shoulder, breaking down into quiet sobs.  
  
“Good. That’s real good, sweetheart.” Shuffling noises. “Don’t you move a muscle. You sit right here and count to one hundred, you got me?” The wallet suddenly thudded onto her purse beside her. “Out loud. Right now.”  
  
“O-one-”  
  
“Don’t you look away from that lake. I’ll know.”  
  
“Two, t-three, four…”  
  
The gun suddenly vanished, and she heard the sound of running feet behind her, every step churning the fear, the acid, faster and faster in her stomach.  
  
“Twelve, th-thirteen-”  
  
Oh God, she was going to throw up. She was! But she couldn’t move a muscle! He’d come back here and blow her brains out! Skylar shut her eyes as tightly as she could, shoulders shaking.  
  
“Thirty-three, thirty-four…”  
  
She couldn’t hold it in anymore. She leaned forward and smoothed her hair over her shoulder, shoving her head between her knees, and even there she still forced out the words on an anemic whisper.  
  
“Fifty-eight, fifty-nine…”  
  
Stay calm. She had to stay calm. She was just a short distance from her apartment. Less than a mile. She just had to get back there. She just had to-  
  
“Eighty, eighty-one…”  
  
She dug her fingernails into her legs, her breathing turning shaky, and felt the world swim around her. No! She wasn’t passing out, not here, not with that guy still somewhere around her! No! Stay alert, stay alive!  
  
“Ninety-nine, one hundred…”  
  
She grabbed her wallet and forced it open. All the cash was gone. All of it. Her heart sank into her chest. That five hundred dollars from her parents, just waiting there for her to go to the bank, just waiting for her to remember it, it was gone. But everything else was intact, thank God. The faint smell of latex drifted up to her nose. Something told her that whoever robbed her wasn’t going to be easy to find through the magic of fingerprints.  
  
“Stay calm,” she whispered, shoving her wallet into her purse. “Stay calm. You’re strong. Just make it home. That’s all you gotta do.” She stood to her feet and pressed a hand to her mouth, forcing herself to breathe in and out through her nose. She could do this. She could.  
  
The darkness reached toward her with its sharp, briny claws, sneering at her, threatening her. She’d barely taken two steps when she heard a stick crack and whirled toward it. Was he still there? Was he waiting to kill her? She’d done what he wanted, hadn’t she?!  
  
She dropped to her knees beside the bench and wiped the tears from her face with one hand, reaching for her cell phone with the other. “Pick up, pick up, pick up…”  
  
“Hello?”  
  
“Colton!” She sucked in a thick, shaky breath, pressing her head against the bench. She wasn’t going to sob, dammit, not now! “Colton, I-I need help!”  
  
“What?” He was still under the thick fog of sleep. Wake up, dammit!  
  
“Th-there was a man. He took my wallet and put a gun in my back a-and I can’t get home, Colton. I can’t. I can’t even walk. I’m scared.”  
  
“Whoa, whoa, hold on, he did what?”  
  
“He robbed me! Please, Colton!”  
  
“Where are you?! Are you in your apartment?!”  
  
“N-no, I’m at Steak & Shake down the street. I-I just wanted a milkshake. I-”  
  
“Are you in the building?”  
  
“No, I’m scared.”  
  
“Get inside that building. I’m coming. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”  
  
“Colton, I can’t. I can’t even stand up. Oh, Colton, please don’t hang up,” she whispered, shutting her eyes tightly.  
  
“I’m not. I’m here, Skylar, I’m on the phone with you. I’m not leaving you alone.”  
  
She cried quietly, and Colton was wise enough not to push her for words. He cooed to her softly, whispering comfort, promising solace, and she listened desperately for the sound of an approaching car.  
  
There. She forced her eyes open. There was a Jeep, right there, right in Steak & Shake’s parking lot. The door opened, and a long, gangly body sprang out onto the ground. “Skylar?!”  
  
“I’m by the lake, by the bench.” She watched Colton’s head swing toward her before he took off, running straight for her. She dropped the phone to the ground and reached for him like a child, and he skidded to the ground and wrapped her in a fierce embrace. “Colton,” she whispered, digging her fingers into his t-shirt.  
  
He pulled back for only a moment, taking her head gently between his hands to force her to look at him. “Did he do anything to you?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Nothing?”  
  
“H-he just took my money and left.”  
  
“Jesus,” Colton whispered, pulling her tight against him and locking his arms around her like a vice. “Jesus Christ, Skylar, what were you thinking?!”  
  
“I don’t know!” she sobbed. Here, wrapped in his arms, drowning in his woodsy smell, she abandoned all of her strength and cried into his shoulder. “I don’t know!”  
  
“Shh, it’s okay, I’m here, it’s okay.” Colton rocked her back and forth gently like a baby. “He’s gone. He’s not coming back.”  
  
They sat there for long minutes before Skylar was finally able to get a hold of herself, to keep her cries at bay. She sniffled and wiped at her eyes. “I-I’m sorry.”  
  
“Don’t you dare apologize,” he murmured, squeezing her shoulder as she sat back. “You’ve been through a heck of a lot tonight. Can you stand?”  
  
She nodded. “I think so.”  
  
“Okay.” Colton came to his feet and held out his hands to her. The moon rose behind his head, casting him into shadow. “Take my hand.”  
  
Skylar let him help her to her feet. She even let him draw her close to him, where he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. “I need my purse. And my phone.”  
  
“I’ve got them. Come on.”  
  
They walked together, slow and sure, until Skylar was confident that her legs were going to hold her. “Colton, I…”  
  
“Mmm?” He held her door open for her and waited for her to crawl inside.  
  
“I…I-I can’t go home tonight.”  
  
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” He handed her the purse and lingered in the open door. “I’m taking you back to my place, and you’re going to tell me everything. Unless you don’t want to. If you don’t, I’m whipping out the movies, and we’re gonna keep you busy and safe.”  
  
She nodded gratefully, clinging to her purse. Colton gave her a small smile before shutting her door.  
  
They rode back to the apartment in silence, with only the sound of Lifehouse playing in the background. Skylar stared straight ahead. That man had seen her wallet. Did she have anything in her wallet with her new address on it? Might he come after her to finish the job? To kill her? To do…even worse to her?  
  
Colton led her up to his apartment and let her in first. He guided her inside with his hands on her shoulders and brought her to the couch. “Do you want something to drink?” he asked.  
  
She considered it. “Do you have tea?”  
  
“Sweet tea?”  
  
She shook her head. “Earl Gray?”  
  
Colton’s eyes widened a little. “Miss Laine, I never took you for a hot tea drinker.”  
  
“Sometimes it’s just what you need.”  
  
He offered her a smile. “Well, you’re lucky. My old roommate used to drink it all the time, and I’ve still got a few bags tucked away that I stole from him.” Colton stood to his feet and made his way back to the kitchen.  
  
Listening to the domestic sounds of him puttering around, filling a kettle, clinking two mugs together, it all played a soothing symphony that hugged her close and urged her to relax. She curled into a tight ball and rested against the arm of the couch with a soft sigh.  
  
“You falling asleep on me in there?”  
  
“No.” She didn’t bother to open her eyes. It was safer in here, her eyelids illuminated by his lamp, her ears filled with the little sounds of Colton’s apartment. She was contained. There was no way anyone could get to her.  
  
“Do you want anything to eat?”  
  
She shuddered. Her stomach was still churning quietly. If she gave it anything but tea, she feared she’d be ruining Colton’s carpet. “No, not right now. Thank you.” She paused. “What time is it?”  
  
“Eleven-fifteen,” he called back. The kettle began to whistle, and he snatched it off the burner quickly.  
  
“I’m making you lose sleep again.”  
  
“Pssh. I could sleep all day if I wanted. Both of us could. Besides, you’re worth staying up for.” She opened her eyes as his voice grew louder and watched him cross the room to her and place a mug on the end table beside her head. “I think you should call Joseph.”  
  
She furrowed her eyebrows. “Right now?”  
  
“Skylar, you just got robbed. There’s only so much I can do to relax you. He can do a lot more. He’s known you for how long now?”  
  
“Almost five years.”  
  
“Exactly.” Colton sat against the other arm of the couch, feet pressed into the sofa cushion as he studied her. “So give him a call.”  
  
She shook her head even as she held the warm mug and breathed in the soothing vapors of the tea. “He’s asleep right now. Probably just finished writing a paper. I don’t want to wake him.”  
  
“He won’t care. He loves you.”  
  
 _You don’t know Joseph,_ she thought, biting her bottom lip in indecision.  
  
“I just want you to be okay, Skylar. Okay? So call him.”  
  
She was still tense enough to crack an egg on, and she realized that Colton was staring at her with very real concern in his eyes. “Okay.” If this would make him feel better, she’d do it. She pulled her phone from her purse and dialed Joseph, all the while staring at the wall furthest away from Colton.  
  
He picked up. “Remember that paper I have due tomorrow?” he asked roughly.  
  
“…yeah?”  
  
“Then why the hell are you calling me when you know I’ve still gotta get it done?”  
  
She stiffened, tears of frustration biting at her eyes. “I just wanted to check on you.”  
  
“Well, I’m not anywhere close to finishing this, and you know I can’t focus when I’m on the phone.”  
  
“All right, fine.” She was suddenly conscious of how closely Colton was watching her, of how he was weighing everything that was being said. “Well, I hope you get it done.”  
  
“Yeah,” Joseph muttered. “Me too.”  
  
“I just thought you should know I got robbed tonight.”  
  
“…what?”  
  
“Robbed. At gunpoint. I was just calling to let you know.”  
  
“Jesus, Skylar, what the hell were you doing to get yourself robbed?!”  
  
“I wasn’t doing anything! I was just getting a milkshake!”  
  
“God. I can’t believe you moved down there. Are you all right?”  
  
The doors were closing, and Joseph was already stuck on the other side. “I’m fine. Have fun with your essay.”  
  
“Skylar…”  
  
She hung up and threw the phone across the room. It skidded across the carpet and came to a stop as it bumped against the far wall where she’d been staring. A heavy silence coated the room as she took a drink of tea, the mug shaking in her hands. After she swallowed, she forced her words out. “He’s busy writing an essay.”  
  
“I heard,” Colton said softly.  
  
“School’s very important to him,” she informed him, twisting herself around so far that her back was almost to him. “He’s very busy. When he gets busy, he gets stressed out.”  
  
“You don’t have to defend him-”  
  
“I’m not defending him,” she snapped. “I’m just…” She shook her head and took another long sip. “He’ll call back tomorrow and everything’ll be fine.”  
  
Colton was silent. He set his mug down on the coffee table. “He won’t call you back tonight?”  
  
“Not with that essay to work on.” When Colton still didn’t say anything, she glanced over her shoulder. The pain she saw written on his face was almost more than she could bear. “It’s fine, Colton, really. It’s no big deal. I should’ve just called him tomorrow when I knew he wasn’t gonna be busy.” She shrugged and forced a small smile. “It’ll be fine. It’s just a little fight.”  
  
He had a lot of things to say. She could see it written right across his face. But he didn’t. Whether he was too scared or too smart, she didn’t know, but he kept his mouth shut and didn’t say a word. Instead he stood up and made his way to his TV. He came back with a tall stack of DVDs. “Pick one.”  
  
“You were serious about the movie?”  
  
“We’re drinking Earl Gray. Very caffeinated Earl Gray.” He offered her a smile, and she took it for the olive branch that it was. “So…unless you want to talk…”  
  
“No, no more talking.” Skylar studied the DVD titles as she gently swirled her tea around her mug. “I don’t really wanna talk about how much of an idiot I was tonight.”  
  
“I just want to know…are things that different where you’re from? That you can just go walking around at midnight and not worry about anything?”  
  
“It’s very different there. Everybody knows everybody. If someone tried to rob me, they’d probably be someone I went to high school with, and I’d probably give them a good tongue-lashing for even thinking about trying. It’d be no big deal.” She smiled despite herself. “Do you know how many girly movies you have?”  
  
He had the good grace to look sheepish. “I had a girlfriend who was incredibly enthusiastic about getting me to explore my feminine side.”  
  
“Well, it’s about to pay off,” she said with a chuckle. “We’re picking the Jane Austen.”  
  
His shoulders sagged in relief. “Oh, thank goodness. I thought you were gonna pick one of the musicals.”  
  
“Nope. Pride and Prejudice is good enough for me right now.”  
  
“Well, that’s not so bad, I guess.”  
  
“Yep. You get to stare at Keira Knightley, and I get to stare at Matthew MacFadyen.”  
  
“Hey now.” He grinned at her over his shoulder as he worked at his DVD player. “I know I’m a twig, but that doesn’t mean girls that look like me are my thing.”  
  
“But she’s gorgeous!”  
  
“You’re right, she is. But she also needs to eat a sandwich.” He chuckled. “If I tried to hug her, she’d probably snap in two.”  
  
Skylar settled back into the couch and tilted her head to the side. “Is THAT why you hugged Jessica so much?”  
  
He turned his head away from her, but she could see a little blush touch his neck. “That girl needed all the hugs she could get.”  
  
She smiled. Fair enough. She’d leave that subject alone. “So what kind of girl IS your type, then?”  
  
Colton shrugged. “Shorter than me. Happy. In love with God.”  
  
“You don’t sound that picky.”  
  
“When it comes right down to it,” he said as the TV lit up with the opening menu, “I don’t have anything to be picky about. Women are beautiful. All of them. They’re alluring, mysterious, intoxicating, captivating…that’s how God made them to be. Whenever I meet a girl, I always challenge myself to find something beautiful about her, even if she‘s mean or cruel. It reminds me that no matter how she acts, God created her in His image, and she deserves the same respect that any other human being gets.”  
  
Skylar let his words sink in, nodding absently. “So even if a girl broke your heart and cheated on you with your best friend, you’d still think she was beautiful? You‘d still respect her?”  
  
He paused. “It’d be harder. But God tells us to love our neighbors like we love ourselves, right? So I’d forgive her, no matter how hard it is. And I’d still show her common courtesy. I wouldn’t be with her again, no, because sometimes I feel like God calls us to step away from someone and give them distance if they’re being poisonous and trying to bring us down, but if I crossed her on the street, I’d still be polite.”  
  
She let out a long breath of air and shook her head. “Colton, you’re too much.”  
  
“I’m just trying to live this life like God wants me to. I’ve figured out that I’m happy when I do that. It’s not always easy, but it’s always worth it in the end.” Colton settled onto the couch beside her and smiled at her. “For someone who didn’t wanna talk, you’re sure getting chatty.”  
  
The fact that she smiled back so easily surprised herself. It wasn’t fake anymore. The tension was bleeding out of her system. As the soft opening notes of the movie’s score chimed, she relaxed into the couch. “You just bring that side out of me. What can I say?”


	5. Chapter 5

Waking up was different today, but Skylar registered exactly why in stages.  
  
First, her neck was aching, as if she’d fallen asleep at a weird angle.  
  
Second, the material beneath her cheek was cotton, not the satin of her pillowcases.  
  
Third, she was warm, even though she typically kicked off all her sheets in the middle of the night.  
  
She absently flexed her fingers and felt them press against something hard, something that didn’t yield like a mattress.  
  
And then she remembered.  
  
 _Jesus, I’m an idiot._ She didn’t want to open her eyes. She didn’t want to remember everything that happened last night: the idiocy of going out on her own, the mugging, her inability to get home on her own. It’d seemed like such a great idea at the time, but had she ever been so stupid before?  
  
She also had the sneaking suspicion that the reason her pillow was rising and falling beneath her cheek was because, instead of an inanimate object, it was a man.  
  
Finally, she couldn’t stand it anymore. She peeked. There was a wide expanse of white right beside her, the soft cotton of Colton’s v-neck t-shirt. She let her gaze drift upward, taking in the few sparse, fine hairs on his chest, the flecks of stubble on his cheeks, and the thick eyelashes laying shut. His lips were parted slightly, just enough to catch her eye, just enough to make her stomach flip.  
  
Her eyes widened. That hadn’t been part of the plan.  
  
As she shifted, trying to get away from the intimate warmth of sleep, trying to regain the upper hand in her friendship with him, she realized she couldn’t escape. A glance told her that his arms were wrapped around her, and when she moved again they only tightened. Colton sighed softly, still lost somewhere in his dreams, and Skylar squeezed her eyes shut as she tried to form a plan.  
  
No need to panic. This was what friends did all the time. And Colton was an attractive man. Everyone knew that. He’d been a topic of much discussion among the girls on Idol, even those like her who had a boyfriend at the time.  
  
Who _still_ had a boyfriend, she reminded herself.  
  
She peeked again, this time at the far-off place where her cell phone lay on the floor. The screen was lit up with who knew how many missed calls and text messages. She silently cursed herself for leaving it on vibrate and never going to pick it up after the movie started.  
  
She had to get to her phone. She glanced up at Colton again. She didn’t want to wake him up, to have him witness the blush on her cheeks and the confusion in her gaze. She had to move carefully.  
  
Skylar reached for his hands and slowly, ever so slowly, began to detangle his fingers one at a time. One. Two. She’d gotten to the third finger when he suddenly groaned quietly, his head lolling to the side and his lips brushing against her hair.  
  
If her stomach merely flipped before, it nearly exploded into sparks and butterflies now.  
  
His eyes lazily began to open, revealing a half-lidded and exhausted gaze that flickered around the room before finally focusing on her face. For a moment, he pulled her closer. And then he seemed to come back to himself. His eyes widened a little, and he smiled at her. “Hey.” He immediately let her go, scooting surreptitiously away on the couch until there was some distance between them. “How’d you sleep?”  
  
“Just fine,” she said softly. “I’m sorry I fell asleep on you like that.”  
  
He laughed, the early morning turning his voice into a husky growl. “Don’t worry about it. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been a pillow.”  
  
She looked away, forcing a smile. “I’ll bet.”  
  
As she came to her feet, she self-consciously patted her hair down, aware of Colton still looking at her as she moved to get her cell phone. “Since you and my sister are about the same size, it actually wasn’t that different. Difficult, I guess I should say, not different. It wasn’t that difficult.”  
  
She picked up her phone and let the screen come to life. Three missed calls and five text messages, all from Joseph. She touched her hand to her chest and bit her bottom lip.  
  
“Everything okay?” Colton asked, leaning forward on the couch.  
  
“Yeah, I just…” She hesitated. In any other circumstance, she wouldn’t think twice about confiding in Colton, but she’d just fallen asleep with him and cuddled all night on his couch. Bringing her boyfriend into the room felt…felt like…Skylar shook her head and smiled again. “I’m just surprised Joe’s trying to get in touch with me.”  
  
“Seriously? Why wouldn’t he?”  
  
She shrugged. “It’s no big deal. I’ve just normally gotta be the one to reach out, y’know?”  
  
“Even if it was him that did something wrong in the first place?”  
  
She looked at Colton, brows furrowing. “He didn’t do anything wrong.”  
  
Colton was silent. He watched her, absently running a hand through his hair.  
  
“I’m serious. I was the one who interrupted him in the first place. The phone call could’ve waited until today, especially with his essay. All he did was remind me he had homework to do and no time to do it in.”  
  
With every word she spoke, Colton looked more and more pained. But finally after what felt like an eternity of silence, he sighed and rubbed his face. “Okay.” He pushed himself to his feet and padded to the kitchen. “Okay. You want some breakfast?”  
  
She clutched her cell phone tighter. What she really wanted was to run from the apartment, maybe even to run all the way to Mississippi, but that wasn’t an option. Even if she made it there, a part of her murmured bitterly, Joseph still had homework to take care of. “I don’t wanna eat all your food…”  
  
“Pssh.” Colton waved her off. “Whatever. I’ve got more than enough. I always kind of overbuy at the grocery store, you know what I mean?” He grinned at her. “Are you always this awkward when you just woke up?”  
  
She dabbed at the skin around her eyes, feeling for traces of running mascara or eyeshadow from the night before. She realized in horror that she might’ve smeared it all over Colton’s bright white t-shirt. “…I mean…”  
  
He rolled his eyes with a smile. “All right, listen, if you’re feeling that weird about it, go next door and brush your teeth, put your hair up, whatever, and I’ll get breakfast started. Okay?”  
  
She wasn’t getting out of this any time today, she realized. She nodded.  
  
“Eggs? Bacon? Toast?”  
  
“Please,” she said, smiling despite herself.  
  
“Now that’s my kind of girl.” He winked at her before he went to work pulling skillets out of his cabinets and thereby missing Skylar’s sudden embarrassed blush. “All right, go on. I’ll leave the door unlocked.”  
  
Skylar barely stumbled outside and shut the door behind her before she released her held breath in a whoosh. Decent. She had to get decent. Maybe she’d put on a little makeup, braid her hair over her shoulder in the way that always looked incredibly cute, wear her favorite jeans…no, no, no, /decent!/ Not cute! She leaned back against Colton’s door and covered her eyes, taking a deep breath.  
  
Her mind was still muddled with sleep, she decided. It was time to wake up, get ready for the day, and focus.  
  
Joseph deserved an apology, she mused as she walked to her apartment. He might’ve caught her off-guard last night, but she’d purposely attacked him in such a way that would get him panicked, and then put herself far enough away from him that he couldn’t reach her. It was petty. And Joseph deserved better than petty. As she stepped into her bathroom, she highlighted Joseph’s name and put him on speakerphone while she attacked her hair with a brush.  
  
“Baby?”  
  
“Hey, sweetheart,” she said softly, smiling at the sound of his voice.  
  
“Jesus, I’m glad you’re calling me back.” Joseph laughed, and Skylar heard a touch of nervousness in it. “Are you okay?”  
  
“I’m just fine, thank you for asking.”  
  
“I feel like a dick.”  
  
“No, Joseph-”  
  
“ _Yes,_ Skylar, I was a dick last night, seriously. You don’t have to make excuses for me. I-I just…I was all focused on myself instead of you and it was stupid.”  
  
Her fingers immediately began to twist her hair into a braid as her smile grew. “That’s funny. I feel like the jerk instead.”  
  
“No!”  
  
“Yeah, seriously. I was such a kid throwing a temper tantrum last night. I should’ve just explained everything to you and left it at that, y’know? Instead of hanging up on you and getting rid of the phone.”  
  
“I was wondering why you were ignoring me.”  
  
“Not ignoring you, just…I got distracted.”  
  
“Well, I guess you deserved it, as long as it kept you safe and happy. What’d you do?”  
  
Skylar tugged out her eyeshadow palette and began applying a neutral brown shade. “Colton and I hung out. He really took care of me, actually. Came and picked me up when I was scared to walk home and took me to his place and made me some tea and we watched girly movies and just…I’unno. It was nice to have a friend to do that with, y’know?”  
  
Joseph was quiet for a moment. “Well, I’m glad he took care of you, babe. Real glad. Did you ever call the police or anything?”  
  
“Oh, sweetie, that man’s long gone. I didn’t even get a look at his face or anything.”  
  
“What? Why not?”  
  
“Cuuuuz he was gonna shoot me if I did?”  
  
“I guess that makes sense.”  
  
She smiled even as her fingers tightened around the makeup brush. “Shut up. It was scary.”  
  
“I bet.” He sighed. “I wish you didn’t have to go through stuff like that.”  
  
 _Me neither,_ she thought, but kept it to herself. “It was a one-time fluke, sweetheart, ‘cuz I was being stupid. It’s not gonna happen again, trust me.”  
  
“God, I hope not.” He paused. “…so, uh, I wanted to ask you something.”  
  
“Mm-hmm?” she asked. She studied herself in the mirror. She’d wait for the lip gloss until after she brushed her teeth.  
  
“How d’you feel about me coming down there for Labor Day weekend?”  
  
Her eyes widened. “…seriously?”  
  
“Seriously.”  
  
“You’d come here?!” she asked, a grin exploding across her face as she came up on her tiptoes.  
  
“Well, where the hell else am I gonna go?”  
  
“I don’t know!” she shouted, hopping a few times.  
  
“Then I’ll be there.”  
  
“Why didn’t you say anything about it before?! I don’t have a lot of time to get ready!”  
  
He laughed. “I-I dunno. Just…just wanted to surprise you, I guess.”  
  
“Well, I’m gonna cook all your favorite stuff, and we’re gonna go out every night, and we’re gonna-”  
  
“Skye, seriously, you don’t gotta do all that. I just wanna spend time with you. I wanna see your place. And that’s it.”  
  
She closed her eyes and bit her bottom lip in sheer happiness, her smile starting to hurt her face. “I can’t wait.”  
  
“Me neither. All right, babe, I’ve gotta go get the rest of this homework done before class tomorrow. Are we okay?”  
  
“We’re more than okay,” she said softly, leaning against her counter. “I love you.”  
  
“I love you too, baby. Bye.”  
  
She sighed as she ended the call and took a moment to grin at herself in the mirror. Joseph was coming here. Here! He was coming here! That’d been the last thing she’d expected from him after last night. Maybe she’d expected a screaming match over the phone, or him to end it with her again, but this? This was incredible.  
  
She had to tell Colton. The thought struck her with such violence that she nearly dropped her toothbrush in the sink. But it felt important, vitally important, that she do it now, right this second, right this instant. She threw herself into brushing her teeth with a vengeance.


	6. Chapter 6

“So I’ve been thinking.”  
  
“That’s never good.”  
  
“Shut up, Laine,” Colton said with a smile, playfully shoving her shoulder.  
  
Skylar laughed, barely dodging over a branch on the ground, and grinned unrepentantly. “All right, Dixon. What’ve you been thinking?”  
  
“I’ve been thinking…that before we go out there and attack the music scene, we’ve gotta do some reconnaissance.”  
  
She stared at him. “I thought that’s what you’d been doing for the past, what, couple of weeks? Y’know, when you were telling me we weren’t ready yet?”  
  
He waved her off and took another quick bite of his apple. “I know,” he said, voice muffled around the bite, before he swallowed it down. “But that’s the point. I know how we’re gonna get ready now.”  
  
“Uh-huh. And how’s that?”  
  
“Karaoke.”  
  
“…” Skylar burst out laughing. “Are you serious?!”  
  
“Serious as Jesus Christ himself!”  
  
“Geez. That’s pretty dang serious.”  
  
“Tell me about it.” He smirked at her as he reached out to ruffle her hair, but she smacked his hand away without any hesitation. “Come on. Karaoke. It’ll be a good opportunity to check out our competition.”  
  
“Oh, Colton, they’re not our competition! This isn’t Idol all over again.”  
  
He slowly cocked an eyebrow. “See, this is why I’ve gotta take you out to karaoke. You’re underestimating the sheer level of talent this city is hiding.”  
  
“Something’s telling me it’s just gonna be a bunch of middle-aged chicks belting out Celine Dion.”  
  
“Be that as it may…”  
  
Skylar’s eyes drifted to the giant building not-too-far off in the distance. It was a full-size replica of the Parthenon, Colton had told her, the ancient temple dedicated to Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, and he promised to take her there next weekend. Today, however, was a simple picnic in Centennial Park, which was as broad and lush and green as anything she’d seen in Nashville so far. They had a few hours to kill before the next performance of Shakespeare in the Park, which happened to be showing Romeo and Juliet this year, and what better way than strolling around in the sun?  
  
“You’re honestly thinking,” she began, nodding to the shell in the distance, “that us singing karaoke’s gonna get us one step closer to performing in that band shell amphitheater thingy over there?”  
  
“Skylar. Seriously. If you can get the karaoke crowds into you, you’ve got it made.”  
  
She shook her head. “I still think you’re crazy. But I guess I can play along with it.”  
  
“Good. Because I was gonna drag you kicking and screaming there tomorrow anyway.”  
  
“Tomorrow?!” She laughed. “Colton, am I ever gonna get to plan my days myself?”  
  
“Nope.” He smirked again.  
  
“You are such a jerk.”  
  
“You love me.”  
  
She ducked her head down for a moment, narrowly missing stepping on a kid’s abandoned sandal. “So where’re we gonna go do this whole karaoke thing?”  
  
“Does it matter?”  
  
“Yeah! I gotta plan my outfit.”  
  
He rolled his eyes. “You’re such a girl.” He tossed his arm around her shoulders companionably, and after a brief moment of hip-bumping and laughing they were walking step-in-step again. “Fine. It’s called The Rusty Nail.”  
  
She slowly lifted an eyebrow. “The Rusty Nail.”  
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“What kind of place is that?”  
  
He shrugged. “A bar? Does it matter?”  
  
“I mean, do I wear cowboy boots and tassels, or-”  
  
“Okay, first of all, only the tourists do that.”  
  
“…really?”  
  
He grinned. “Look, I may be a Murfreesboro kid instead of some native Nashvillian, but even _I_ can tell you that. Trust me. The quickest way to spot a tourist downtown is to look for the cowboy costume.”  
  
Skylar shook her head and tried to hide her smile. “Note to self: send cowgirl Halloween costume back to Mississippi.”  
  
“Look, just wear whatever you want. Whatever makes you feel cute, confident, I don’t know. Whatever makes you sound good.”  
  
“You’re no help.”  
  
He released her with a light, friendly shove. “Hey, if you want fashion advice, you can go find someone else to be your singing buddy.” When he tugged at a lock of her hair, Skylar shoved down the immediate fizzing sensation that took over her stomach. “Otherwise, you’re stuck with me.”  
  
She let her smile blossom this time, all the while praying that the heat she felt in her cheeks wasn’t rising to the surface. “I guess I can be happy with that.” She slowed to a stop beneath a particularly large tree and rubbed the back of her neck sheepishly. “I, uh…hope you know you’re doing at least one duet with me tomorrow.”  
  
“ _One_ duet?” Colton smiled. “Skye, you’re gonna be lucky to get away with less than five. We sound good together, and we don‘t look too bad standing next to each other either. Might as well take advantage of it.”  
  
When Colton leaned against the trunk of the tree and slowly slid down to the ground, gaze cast downward, Skylar’s eyes followed without hesitation. She took in the jauntiness of his hat, the paleness of his skin beneath his black Batman t-shirt, the slight baggyness of his dark jeans, even the Converse that completed the entire ensemble, and shook her head in wonder. Even at his dorkiest, he still managed to look as handsome as any man she’d ever seen.  
  
When she felt her stomach twirl and her heart surge with guilt, she let her thoughts curve around it. They _did_ look good together. Heck, if they ever got their act together, they could even go on tour with each other. A double header. It’d look good. They’d make plenty of cash. And she was sure that, out of all the musicians she knew, Colton was the only one she wouldn’t be afraid to argue with.  
  
Their friendship was strong. If anything even tried to test it, she had the distinct feeling that it’d be beyond easy for them to sit down and talk it out.  
  
She felt her heart cool off again, the guilt being replaced with quiet patience again. _See?_ Skylar thought. _Why would you even feel guilty about looking at him? You’re just thinking about what he said and all._  
  
“Penny for your thoughts?”  
  
She jolted back to the present, eyes widening as she met Colton’s eyes. The smile on his lips was lazy and languid, almost like he’d been taking her in too. She shook her head and plopped down beside him. “Oh, nothin’. Was just thinking about what I’m gonna sing with you.”  
  
He pressed his hand into the ground to support himself as he looked out at the Parthenon again. His fingers were so close to her own that she swore she could feel his body heat. “Yeah? Any ideas?”  
  
Just one. She closed her eyes and let the opening chords play in the back of her mind. “Maybe. And maybe you’re just gonna have to be there to find out.”


	7. Chapter 7

She smoothed her lip gloss on and rubbed her lips against each other and tried to pretend that her legs weren’t shaking from nerves. It was ridiculous. Skylar Laine, nervous about something like performing? As if. She pursed her lips in the mirror and admired the shimmering effect before she adjusted the bobby pins keeping her hair secure.

Three minutes until Colton was supposed to pick her up for karaoke.

She slid her hands over her denim skirt, letting the ruffle of the hem brush against her thighs. A little adjusting of the lace on her black shirt kept her from feeling like she was _intentionally_ exposing her cleavage for the world to see. The glimpse of her crucifix necklace gleaming in the bright bathroom lights settled the quiet Baptist guilt in her stomach, and she gripped it tightly for a moment before moving on to making sure her heels weren’t scuffed. She’d gotten a lot of wear out of them, but never to something quite as important as this felt.

Two minutes until Colton’s arrival.

Karaoke wasn’t anything new, of course, and she had no reason to feel shy or nervous. She’d stood up in front of thousands of people every week for months on end and belted enough songs to earn her performing stripes. And yet right there, right at the base of her stomach, was a steady surge of adrenaline that had her knees knocking and her palms burning. She pressed her hands into the porous surface of her bathroom counter and leaned into it with a sigh. There had to be a reason for it. And it sure as hell wasn’t because this was the first time that she and Colton were hitting the music scene together since their favorite gossip had surged across the Internet. After their closeness on the Idol tour, after the way they introduced, say, the Nashville show together, after they had been seen alone in each of the cities in public before they’d gone their separate ways, him with Phil and Heejun, her with Hollie and Joshua...

One minute until he would get here…and the rumors would start all over again.

She closed her eyes tightly. Joseph hadn’t been in the picture during the tour. It’d been during their split, during the time where she was free to look around again, during when she should’ve been nursing a broken heart instead of feeling as free as a bird. But now that picture was complete again, with Joseph back in it. And that meant that no matter what had happened on the tour, she and Colton were never-

There was a knock at the door. Skylar’s eyes flew open, and she studied herself for a long moment before she nodded and tucked a wayward curl behind her ear. She was perfect. And tonight was going to be incredible.

She’d make sure of it.

Her heels dug into the carpet of her apartment, giving her something to fight against, giving her something to divert her thoughts with, and by the time she’d peeked through the peephole and opened the door, the smile that stretched across her face was genuine. “Why, Mr. Dixon, fancy seeing you tonight.”

He grinned at her, his hair flopping right across his eye. The smell of hairspray was overwhelming for the moment, though she wasn’t sure if it was mostly from hers or his, and she bit back a giggle as he frowned and flicked his hair just a few centimeters to the side. When it stayed in place, he looked satisfied. “Well, y’know, thought it might be a nice night to take my neighbor out. That sort of thing.”

“Completely unplanned?”

“Oh, of course.”

“Just flying by the seat of your pants?”

He looked away, slowly smiling wider. “Well…”

She bit her tongue, but she still snorted in amusement. The day that Colton didn’t plan things to the letter would definitely be one to see. “All right, I’ve just gotta grab my purse. You want anything to drink or something?”

“Nah, I’m good.”

“You sure?” She didn’t move from the doorway, smoothing her hands over her skirt again.

He snapped his eyes back to hers, brow wrinkling in thought. “I’m pretty sure they have drinks at The Rusty Nail.”

“Right, of course they do.”

He slowly tilted his head to the side. “You’re nervous.”

“What? No!” She finally went into motion, grabbing her keys, flipping her lamps off, whatever it took to keep her back to him. “This is nothing compared to Idol. Why the heck would I be nervous?”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out, because you are.” When she looked at him from across the room he was frowning, rubbing his chin in thought. “There’s only a few reasons why you would be. And all of them are silly.”

She rolled her eyes. “C’mon, let’s go, we’re gonna miss all the parking.”

“Either you’re nervous about this being your big underground Nashville debut-”

“Colton-”

“-or you’re afraid to be seen with me.”

She stared up at him, eyes wide.

“Which is sillier than the other one…because we’ve been out together for quite a while now, in broad daylight, and you haven’t been nervous at all.” He shook his head, crossing his arms over his chest. “So it can’t be that.”

Skylar looked away again, tightening her fingers around her purse. And then she scoffed. “Colton the Detective, hard at work.”

“Can I help at all?”

She weighed her options. She could tell the truth and open a can of worms, or she could lie and be in serious trouble when he saw past her facade. But there was always a third option, wasn't there? Divert and redirect. “That's sweet of you, but seriously, it's not a problem.” And then she forced a smile. “The only problem's gonna be if we're so late we can't get on that karaoke list.”

Colton narrowed his eyes with a wry smile. “Yooooou've...never done karaoke before, have you?”

“What was your first clue?”

He chuckled before jerking his head toward the door. “All right. C'mon. We've got to educate you.”

~~~

It was fascinating how quickly hype could die down. As Skylar walked into The Rusty Nail, she found herself utterly unnoticed by everyone around her. People who just over a year ago were screaming themselves hoarse for her on the Idol tour were looking past her, _through_ her, as if she'd never made a name for herself here in the first place.

Geez.

“This is weird, isn't it?” she asked as she elbowed Colton.

He blinked. “What?”

“Like, look at this. Nobody even knows who we are anymore.”

She wasn't even remotely surprised when Colton simply shrugged and nudged her toward the little stage, where a duo was belting out their version of “Hit Me With Your Best Shot.” “It's whatever. I mean, think about it: two years ago they didn't know who we were either. People change. Things change. And fame is fleeting.” He picked up a few pieces of paper and offered a nearby woman a smile as she set down a fat book. “That's why it's important we do this thing right.”

“This thing?”

He picked up the book and led her to a small, empty table. “Music. Life. Everything.” As he began to flip through the book, she scanned the names of countless songs held within. “Most people get one chance. We're getting a second. So we've got to make sure we use it to do something worthwhile.”

She whistled. “Sounds scary.”

“It is.” He grinned at her. “But we knew that going in. That's what music is all about.” He plucked a piece of paper between his first and second fingers and quirked a brow, holding it toward her. “So. First song is your pick.”

“I think it should be, if I'm gonna be the one singing it,” she teased.

“Nonono, if we're gonna get attention, we're gonna do it right.” He slid a pen toward her and leaned against his hand. “I say...we start with a duet.”

“Really?” She blinked. “Why?”

“Because two is better than one.” He gestured toward the book. “Go on, pick. Pick anything.”

“Anything?”

“Totally. We've both got good ears. We can make up harmonies if we don't know them,” he said with a laugh.

She didn't hesitate. She didn't even look at the book. She scribbled down a song name, her lips curling into a secret smile.

“You look like you're planning something,” Colton teased. When she slid the piece of paper toward him, he glanced down at it. When his eyebrows slid skyward, she waited for him to refuse her. But instead, he slowly smiled. “'Just a Kiss.' Lady Antebellum?”

“But of course. You know it?”

“Heck yeah.” He began to hum softly, and Skylar leaned in to hear it. She wanted to stop him, to tell him that it was wrong, that wasn't how the melody went at all, but like a switch going off in her mind, she realized he wasn't humming the melody in the first place. It was the harmony to the chorus.

Her eyes widened. “You know it better than I thought.”

“Surprised?” He chuckled. “All right. We're doing it.”

~~~

This was it: the first time she'd sang with him, with _anyone_ , in months. She wasn't an idiot. She knew what her voice sounded like. It was sharp, maybe a little jarring, and it sure as hell didn't play well with others. It was made to sing solo or not at all, as an old voice teacher had told her.

And yet she couldn't deny the sheer electricity that came from singing a duet.

They stood side-by-side at the screen as Colton offered her a microphone. “You ready?” he murmured with a smile.

She paused. And then she reached for the mic. “Man,” she said softly. “If I'm with you, I can do anything.” It wasn't until he held onto the mic for a moment longer, his fingers a breath away from hers, that she realized she had meant to be teasing, but from the way he was watching her...maybe he hadn't taken it that way.

Only when the beginning of the instrumental started to play did he nod to her and let go. “You don't need me to kick tail,” he said over the music.

Words. Just silly words. Down at the bottom of her heart, her soul, they didn't mean terribly much. But the look of sincerity and warmth in his eyes, that affected her far more than she wanted to admit. She was so taken aback that she nearly missed her cue, and stumbled over the first couple of words as she began to sing. “L-lying here with you so close to me...it's hard to fight these feelings when it feels so hard to breathe.” He slowly smiled at her. “I'm caught up in this moment. I'm caught up in your smile...”

She expected him to look away, maybe to keep his eye on the lyrics, but he didn't even flinch. Just kept his gaze on hers. “I've never opened up to anyone. It's hard to hold back when I'm holding you in my arms.”

She sucked in a deep breath and joined him. “We don't need to rush this.” Whoa. “Let's just take it slow.”

Her cheeks turned a darker shade of red than they ever had before, and her entire stomach soared with butterflies. Jesus, he could pull a tight harmony. If that wasn't sexy, nothing was.

“Just a kiss on your lips in the moonlight,” they sang. “Just a touch of the fire burning so bright.” Her fingers tightened around her microphone as tingles shot through them. “I don't wanna mess this thing up. I don't wanna push too far.” Dear God, her heart was pounding. “Just a shot in the dark that you just might...be the one I've been waiting for my whole life. So baby, I'm all right with just a kiss good night...”

She couldn't look at him anymore. It was too much, She stared across the room and touched her chest, feeling her heart thrash beneath her palm. But he didn't seem satisfied with that. “I know that if we give this a little time...” She gasped the last word as Colton gently reached across and stroked his fingers over her cheek just before he joined her again. “...it'll only bring us closer to the love we wanna find.” He cupped her chin in his hand and slowly turned her head until she met his eyes again. “It's never felt so real,” she offered, a spark shooting into the base of her belly.

He grinned. “No, it's never felt so right...”

No. No more.

She looked away and exhaled sharply. Finish the song. Make it happen.

As they sang the chorus again, she stared at the lyrics. She didn't even smile. But no matter where she looked, she couldn't block out the sound of their voices.

No.

_His_ voice.

“No, I don't wanna say good night...”

She'd forgotten what he sounded like.

“I know it's time to leave...”

She'd forgotten the smoothness of his tone, the way he hit every single note without any effort.

“...but you'll be in my dreams...”

But most of all, she'd forgotten the confidence that rolled off of him when he hit his element.

“...tonight...”

She could feel it, like body heat.

“...oh, tonight...”

Like he was touching her again.

“...toniii-iii-iiight...”

She _wanted_ him to touch her again.

“...just a shot in the dark that you just might...” She glanced toward him from the corner of her eye. “...be the one I've been waiting for my whole life...” He was watching her. “...so baby, I'm all right...” She had to look. She did. And the look on his face took her breath away.

He narrowed his eyes in sheer focus, in passion, as he belted out her line, the one she was too spellbound to sing. “Oh, let's do this right!” And he touched her cheek again, as gentle as if she was porcelain. “With just a kiss...good...night...”

The music wound down, but she couldn't look away from his warm, cinnamon gaze. He, however, let his eyes dance around her face, each movement tickling a path along her skin. And then he looked at her lips, and she gasped.

It was the thunderous applause that jolted her back to the present. The drunken whistles and cheers were what made her jolt away from Colton's hand and stumble back down to the closest seat she could find, abarstool, where she could wait for the next hapless soul to take a go at karaoke. Where she could put a little space between her and her dueting partner. When Colton suddenly pressed his hand into the bar and leaned close to her, however, she shivered. “Good act,” he murmured near her ear.

Her heart thudded to a stop. “Wh-what?”

“They totally bought it.” He chuckled. “Seriously. That was hardcore.”

She was having trouble processing his words. Maybe it had something to do with the way that her heart wasn't pumping freshly oxygenated blood through her body anymore. She shook her head and blinked, trying to shake the cobwebs from her mind. “They bought it?”

As she met Colton's eyes, Skylar saw hesitance lying right on the surface. “Yeah. The karaoke. The chemistry. It was some great advertising, right?”

An act. It was all an act.

“It's probably a good thing Joseph wasn't here, right?”

“Why?” she whispered.

“'Cuz you'd probably be a single woman after that performance,” he teased with a wink.

She exhaled slowly, staring down at the bar. Colton stood by her for a few moments more before he slid onto the stool beside her. His sleeve brushed against her bare arm, and her entire body exploded in both fire and ice.

“You wanna do another one?” Colton asked, flipping open the nearby book of songs.

“...no.” She shook her head. “No, I need a few minutes. You go ahead.”

He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

And go ahead he did. “Whatever It Takes,” by Lifehouse, “Not Over You,” by Gavin DeGraw, and even some Paramore song she didn't recognize right off hand. It was crazy. How could he have so much fun over the next couple of hours while Skylar was busy feeling so lousy?

But she knew she couldn't hold it against him. Every few minutes, she watched him strike up conversation with a newcomer at the bar, or ask the bartender if he knew the best ways to go about getting his name in with the manager of the locale for the next open mic night. He wasn't ignoring her. He was networking, just like Skylar was supposed to be doing. But she couldn't bring herself to do it. All she could do was sit and nurse her water and wish she had the foresight to own a fake ID.

Because, really, when you were doing nothing better than sitting alone at a bar and staring at a man who was too busy to notice you, you realized just how much nicer being drunk seemed.

When Colton finally returned to her side, his face littered with a heavy amount of concern, she tried to pretend she hadn't seen him coming from all the way across the room. It made her feel pathetic. “You okay, Laine?” he asked softly, wrapping his arm around her shoulder.

You also didn't take the time to review the deep sadness welling up inside you or the sudden desire to lurch away from that man's touch when he finally did appear.

“Yeah, I'm fine.” She forced a smile. “I think I'm just exhausted. Might be coming down with something.”

Colton winced. “Geez. We should get you home.”

Skylar waved him off as best she could, even as her other hand groped around for her purse and pulled it into her lap. “Oh, no, Colt, I-I don't wanna ruin your-”

“You're not ruining anything,” he pressed firmly, furrowing his eyebrows. “So stop it. Stop it and come on. I'm gonna take you home and get you tucked into bed.”

Under any other circumstance that might have sounded heavenly, but right now all she wanted to do was walk home. Screw the fact that the several miles in the wee hours of the morning were probably populated with rapists and muggers. Forget that one of those muggers already had knowledge of her name and would probably be the very first person to come across her. It felt safer to risk that than to spend a second more in Colton's presence.

But because Colton was a gentleman, and because underneath it all Skylar wanted nothing more than to spend the night – no, the whole dang weekend – with him, she simply sighed and nodded and let him escort her out to his car.

She'd put her mind on hold for now. She'd deal with it later.


	8. Chapter 8

Pasta. Salad. Cake mix. She had everything they needed. All the ingredients were lined up, the sweet tea was chilling in the fridge...and she was about to lose her mind.

“Hollie, I-I'm in trouble,” she whined into the phone.

“Talk to me. What's wrong?”

Skylar rubbed her face with a sigh. “I'm having dinner with Colton-”

“What?!”

“Not like that!” Skylar flopped onto her stomach and pressed her cheek into the couch. “Just...just like friends. Dinner as friends. You know?”

Hollie was quiet. “...you...you really think you can do that?”

“Do what?”

“Be 'just friends' with him?”

“I've been doing that this whole time!”

“And you've been okay? Honest-to-goodness okay?”

Skylar closed her eyes. “I've...I've been...”

“If you can't answer that right away...you probably haven't been.”

This hurt. It hurt, and she wasn't even sure why. Her eyes drifted to the picture of her and Joseph that sat on the coffee table, and the pain localized right in her chest. “Hollie, I'm with Joe.”

“I know.”

“And I love him.”

“I know that too. But that doesn't make you infallible.”

“But I'm committed to-”

“And commitment doesn't make you strictly Joseph-sexual.”

“Urgh...” Skylar groaned as she shoved herself to her feet. “I don't even want to talk about this.”

“But you _need_ to,” Hollie pressed. “You called _me_ , remember? And you still haven't talked about what happened that last night on the tou-”

“He's gonna be here any minute.”

Hollie fell silent.

“I'd better go.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess you should.”

“...Hollie, I-”

“And you know what, Skylar?” Hollie asked. “Next time you call me? Can you actually be ready to talk about why you called?”

“I'm sor-”

She hung up.

Skylar stared at the phone's blinking screen and gasped. Hollie had actually hung up on her. The nerve! The audacity! The...the...goddammit, Skylar deserved it, didn't she? This is what she got for being her: a lustful, dishonest girlfriend, one who deserved even the worst-

“Skylar?”

“Jesus!” She collapsed back on the couch and stared up at the magically-appearing Colton. He stood in the doorway, eyebrows furrowed, the door swinging quietly in the wind. Christ, had she really been that preoccupied?

He pointed toward the door. “I...I knocked, but you didn't hear me, maybe?” He winced. “I'm sorry if I scared you. I just...wanted to be sure you were okay, you know?”

She nodded even as she dropped the phone on the cushion beside her and shoved her heavy bangs out of her eyes. “Yeah. Yeah.” A little tap on her forehead started bringing her back to the present. “Just...had a rough phone call.”

Colton's eyes widened. “Your boyfriend?”

Skylar met his eyes quickly. “No, he and I are fine.” She waited for a breath to see if Colton would show any signs of disappointment, but when he merely stared at her straight on she continued. “It was Hollie, actually.”

“Hollie? Really?” He blinked. “What'd you do to her?”

“Nothing,” she said a little too quickly, wringing her hands in her lap. “We just had a disagreement about something stupid.”

“Huh.” He rubbed the back of his neck and winced. “Well...for what it's worth, I'm sorry.”

“Thanks.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No, that's...that's okay. It's something I just need to think about.” In fact, she was pretty sure she needed to devote hours to the subject. Either that, or ignore it for the rest of her life. And at the moment, the latter option was looking pretty dang good.

Colton, to his credit, dropped the subject and instead let his eyes drift toward the kitchen. “So...what're we having?” he asked as he walked toward it.

“I thought spaghetti, maybe. And a salad.”

He picked up the box of chocolate cake mix with a grin. “And dessert?”

She shrugged. “I knew you liked chocolate, at least.”

“Love it.”

A secret pleasure swelled up in her chest, and she felt herself smile for the first time in days. “Well.” She came to her feet and smoothed down her hoodie. “No time like the present. Wanna get started?”

“Totally. I could eat a horse.”

“Awesome.” She picked up the box of spaghetti and waved it in the air. “You ever made this before?”

He squinted at it. “Is that anything like ramen?”

“No.”

“Then no.” He chuckled. “Pasta's never been one of my specialties.”

She considered this as she opened the refrigerator and began rooting around inside. “You ever in a gang?”

“Excuse me?” he asked, eyes widening.

“I mean, if you're good with a knife, I'm gonna have to assign you to veggie-chopping duty for the salad,” she drawled as she placed cucumbers, carrots, and green peppers on top of a cutting board.

Colton shook his head. “Skylar Laine, you are something else.”

“So I've heard.” She offered him a large knife, and he accepted the challenge.

For the next few minutes they were both silent, serenaded by the sounds of the knife slicing through vegetables and water sloshing around in a large kettle. Skylar marveled at how easy this was, being domestic. She could almost pretend she was playing house with the man beside her. She could imagine Joseph's broad shoulders and heavy hands working at splitting those veggies up one by one as she broke the pasta in half, her elbow bumping his.

“How's this look?”

Colton, meanwhile, made her smile when she looked at him and saw just how awkwardly he was holding the knife. “Kind of?”

“Kind of?”

“Here, just let me...I'll show you.” She carefully took the knife from him and began chopping with ease. “A little finer, you see?”

“How do you do that?” he asked in awe.

“Do what?”

“Just... _go_ like that!”

Skylar laughed. “It's not as hard as it looks.”

“That's easy for you to say,” he shot back. “When I do it, I'm all thumbs. Geez.”

She rolled her eyes. “You're just thinking too hard. Here, let me just...okay, take the knife.” He did. “Now show me what you were doing.” She could only watch him slice clumsily for a few seconds before she sighed. “No, not like that. You're holding it too tightly. Just...like this.”

Suddenly she was standing behind him, her breasts pressed gently to the curve of his back, her hands cupping his own, and she caught the musky smell of his cologne as it wafted toward her. She gulped and coaxed his fingers into loosening around the cucumber. “Won't I lose it?” Colton asked, his voice soft.

It was difficult being this short. Even if she was wearing her highest heels, she had a feeling she wouldn't be able to see over his shoulder. She leaned slightly to the side and pressed her cheek against his arm. “No. Just trust me,” she murmured. “Now slice.”

With each gentle chop that resonated through their hands, Skylar felt her heart beat a little faster. Eventually her eyes drifted to his profile, expecting to see it in gentle repose. Instead there was a tightness in his cheeks, as if he was holding his breath, though his parted lips belied that. He reached the end of the cucumber and turned his head to look at her.

Time stopped. And then he let the knife fall to the side and reached down to lace his fingers through her hair as he leaned down and pursed his lips and-

KNOCKKNOCKKNOCK.

“Jesus!” Skylar jolted backward, a sharp pain shooting through her scalp from where Colton's fingers held true in her hair. She looked back and forth from him to the door two or three times – she couldn't even count when she was this frazzled – while listening to the sound of their sharp breathing.

His eyes flicked all around the room before he exhaled slowly and dragged his hands through his hair. “Oh my God...”

“Colton, what the hell just-”

KNOCKKNOCKKNOCK.

“Oh, for God's sake,” she snapped as she whirled around and stormed toward the door. She pulled the door open and gasped. “Joseph!”

“Hey!” He grinned at her and opened his arms wide. When Skylar didn't walk straight into them, his smile turned a little stiff. “...it's, uh...it's Labor Day weekend, sweetie.”

“Labor Day weekend,” she murmured distantly, forcing a weak smile to come across her lips as well. “Wow. I didn't expect you here so...so soon.”

He laughed, a touch of nervousness on his tone. “Uh...well, it's seven o' clock, and I didn't have any classes today, so...”

Joseph was here. Joseph was standing right in her doorway, waiting for her to invite him in. He was here for Labor Day weekend, like they'd talked about weeks ago.

She'd forgotten all about him.

“Come in, come in,” she breathed, backing out of the doorway, and Joseph slid past her with his duffle bag. “How, umm...how was the drive?”

“Pretty good. Traffic, of course, but I was expecting that...” He trailed off, and Skylar looked up to see Joseph catching sight of Colton. “Colton. Hey. Nice to see you again.”

“Same.” Colton reached out, and Joseph shook his hand, but all Skylar could see was the absolute guilt painted across his face. “Good to see you.”

The tension in the air was unbearable. Skylar could barely breathe. She stammered until she could form a coherent lie. “Colton, umm...he knew I was running behind making dinner. So he offered to help me catch up before you got here.”

“Well, that's mighty fine of him,” Joseph said, though he didn't smile one bit. “Though I imagine he's got better things to do now that I'm here. No sense in him staying.”

“Joseph...” Skylar murmured.

“Now, Skye, I'm just saying. It's an awful small apartment, and you and me can make dinner just as well by ourselves.” Joseph wandered over to her bed and set his bag beside it. “But I'm right thankful for you, Mr. Dixon, right thankful.”

“Anytime,” Colton said softly, looking toward the door. “...I'll just...get out of your hair, then.”

“I'll walk you out,” Skylar added, aware of Joseph quickly looking at her.

Colton waved her off. “Seriously. I know the way out. I promise.” He didn't even look at her. Simply opened the door and left.

There was an awkward silence before Skylar huffed. “Now you've gone and offended him.”

“Y'know, a little offending might be good for him. I don't know how much I like him over here all hours of the day with you.”

“Oh, come on, Joe!”

He held up a hand to silence her. “Now, let's not start our weekend off with a fight. I'm here to see you. And I want to spend as much time with you as I can.”

She caught the unspoken end to the sentence: as much time with you as I can, _without Colton_. She felt like she was teetering on a seesaw, half of her angry and the other half relieved. Trying to sort through it all was going to take her years. “All right. All right, fine.” Skylar rubbed her eyes as she led the way to the kitchen. “You wanna cut the veggies for the salad?”

“Sure.”

They went to their separate tasks, the only sound the clean slicing of the vegetables. Joseph broke the silence once: “Geez, Skylar, you know I hate chocolate cake.”

This was going to be a long weekend.


	9. Chapter 9

She made it through dinner. She made it through a movie on her couch. She even made it through a make-out session, something that normally thrilled every inch of her but that last night made her skin crawl. It was ridiculous. She loved Joseph. She enjoyed dating him. But this morning as she looked over to see him sleeping beside her she felt an odd sense of disappointment.

She vaguely wondered if she would've been happier to wake up with the lingering smell of hair spray near her nose instead.

Skylar sighed and climbed out of bed, wrapping her bathrobe around her. She'd promised to take Joseph sightseeing through Nashville, though that thought was strange in and of itself. Joe wasn't a big fan of scenery or people-watching, and yet he was expressing a strong desire to see the Parthenon, a performance of Shakespeare in the Park, maybe even the Frist Museum to catch their Monet exhibit or a jaunt to the Nashville Zoo to see the meercats. It didn't make sense.

No, her more sensible mind-half argued, it made perfect sense. There was only so much blabbing she could do during every phone call about what she and Colton did together before Joe would want to take those memories and insert himself into them. But she felt a strong sense of annoyance when she considered that. They were _her_ memories, not his to play with and to alter, and that was that.

...Jesus, she was worse off than she thought.

She grabbed her cell phone and felt a keen sense of disappointment when she didn't have a single text message. Apparently Colton was keeping himself busy. She could typically expect to receive one from Hollie too, but...

That was that. Skylar officially screwed up everything good and happy in her life.

The problem was that Hollie was Skylar's only really close girlfriend these days. She felt a keen need to talk to her once a day and to text her frequently just to share little details about their lives, about their music careers, about everything, and this strange silence was making Skylar twitch. It couldn't go on. Something had to change.

She had a distinct feeling that it was going to be her pride that suffered today.

After making sure Joe was still sleeping – and snoring – soundly, Skylar slid her houseshoes on and walked outside, shutting the door quietly behind her. She leaned against the wall beside her front door and looked up at the sky.

She couldn't do this anymore. She couldn't just go through every day pretending that she and Colton were best friends and that alone. That couldn't cut it anymore.

How many times had she lied to Hollie or to Joseph? How many times had she lied to _herself?_ 'It was nothing. We were just friends. _Nothing happened._ ' Too much bullshit. It was disgusting. And it was time to set the record straight before she lost her mind.

It _was_ the story of friends, that much was true. But just like a symphony wasn't only about the first violins, there were underlying currents in this tale, like the oboes tucked beneath the strings.

It was the story of long eye contact over breakfast. It was the story of walking side-by-side while their hands bumped. It was the story of sharing ice cream and arms around shoulders and coming so close – so goddamn  _close_ \- until a sacrifice was made. Until they were chest-to-chest. Until they were drowning in the sweetest kiss they had ever felt.

It was the story of two friends standing on the cusp of falling in love and one scared to death of looking over the edge. It was the story of a coward who threw away a good man's heart and watched him stare after her in confusion.

It was Skylar running away from the best thing that had ever happened to her.

_That_ was the real story.

She dialed a number into her phone. If she was going to destroy her pride, she might as well do it while reminiscing had made her feel so low.

“Hello?”

“Can we talk?”

When Hollie hesitated, Skylar bit her bottom lip. Hollie had caller ID. If she hated her, Skylar was pretty sure she wouldn't have answered in the first place. But annoyance ran deep sometimes, and Skylar was acutely aware of the fact that she deserved it.

“Please?” Skylar asked weakly. She would get on her knees and take an Instagram picture of her begging if Hollie wanted.

Hollie was quiet. “...are we going to talk about the real reason you called this time?”

“I just...I wanted to talk about last summer. The tour.”

“Then yes, we can talk.” She paused. “As long as you tell me every disgusting detail.”

Skylar smiled despite herself. If Hollie was teasing her, then maybe everything would be okay. “I will. You know I will.” She breathed a heavy sigh of relief and wiggled her toes in her houseshoes in joint anticipation and dread. “God. Where do I start?”

“I've heard the beginning's a pretty good place.”

Skylar laughed, but it contorted into a half-sob in the end. “Hollie, I'm...I'm a mess right now.”

When Hollie gave a soft, sympathetic hum, it was almost more than she could handle. “Just talk to me, Skye. Tell me everything.”

“I'm an idiot.”

“Sometimes you are, yeah, but that doesn't mean we don't love you,” Hollie murmured.

“I...almost kissed him.”

“ _Colton?_ ”

“Yeah.”

“On tour?”

Skylar covered her face in quiet shame. “No, last night. On the tour...I _did_ kiss him.”

Hollie was quiet for a long few seconds. “Wow. When?”

“The last show. After it.”

“Geez. Why?”

“ _Why?_ ” Skylar scoffed. “I liked the guy. I  _really_ liked the guy. I...I wanted to be with him. And he just...” She rubbed her eyes with a sigh. “I was on cloud nine, Hol. We were all adrenalized from performing and were the first two off the stage and he just grabbed my hand and pulled me in and hugged me, and I kissed him, right there, right in front of the whole damn band.”

“Oh my God.” And then she paused. “Wait, I don't understand. Why are you back with Joseph, then? Did Colton just...not like you or something?”

She laughed bitterly. “Oh, he liked me. He liked me too much.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that he...” God, how did you put it into words? It sounded stupid when she was just _thinking_ about it, much less talking about it. “He just cared too much.”

“I don't under-”

“He wanted to take care of me,” she blurted. “He wanted to be with me, maybe for a very long time. And he shouldn't...”

“...he shouldn't want to?” Hollie hedged.

Skylar couldn't answer. If she did, she knew the tears would flow.

“Skylar...” Hollie murmured. “Please tell me you don't mean that, sweetheart.”

Skylar sniffled.

“Why would you even _think_ that?”

“Because I'm messed up,” Skylar pressed. Twin tears trickled down her cheeks. “I-I spent the whole show wanting to be with Colton, hoping I'd see him every morning, thinking what it must be like to kiss him-”

“But Skye, that's not-”

“And the whole time, I was dating Joe! And that's not right!”

“Did you cheat on him?”

“What?”

“Did you cheat on Joseph?”

“I-I mean-”

“Did you ever once sleep with Colton or kiss him or even hold his hand while you were on the show?”

“No, but-”

“Then you didn't cheat on him.”

“But I _wanted_ to!”

“Skylar, listen to me,” Hollie snapped. Skylar immediately shut her mouth. “Was it wrong that you wanted to? Yeah, okay, maybe, but you  _didn't actually go through with it._ And _that's_ what matters!” She barely even stopped to take a breath. “Now tell me how that makes you unlovable.”

“Because I might do it again. Even if I was with Colton, I'll just turn around and do it to him too.”

“Attraction happens. It does. We discussed that. Just because you're with someone doesn't mean you're infallible, remember? But it's not acting on it that's important.” Hollie dropped her voice almost to a whisper. “You're _human,_ Skye. This is _normal._ ”

“...so you think I should stay with Joseph?”

“What do _you_ think you should do?”

Skylar wiped the tears from her face. “I...”

“It's not a trick question,” she said softly. “I want you to think for a few seconds. Listen to your heart. What's it telling you?”

Skylar leaned her head back against the wall and closed her eyes. As two more tears dropped free, she took in a deep breath and thought.

Joseph. Joseph smiling shyly at her over the chemistry table they shared. Joseph holding her hand as they walked side-by-side down the high school hallways. Joseph asking if she ever wondered if they'd get married. And then...it changed. The landscape began to fade, to turn brown and scarred at the edges. It was Joseph interrupting her every time she began to speak. Joseph sighing in exasperation. Joseph quietly suggesting that perhaps they break up in the first place.

Her hand curled into a loose fist. It was funny how the most beautiful things could eventually wither and become mere shadows of their former splendor. But then a sun began to rise, and it caught her breath.

Colton melted into the scene seamlessly. It was Colton rubbing her back the first time she broke down on Idol. Colton paying for her coffee at Starbucks when she forgot her wallet. Colton listening to every word she had to say and offering intelligent advice and criticism every time she asked. The sun rose more vividly and painted him in brilliant colors. Colton disagreeing with her, but encouraging her to sit down with him and discuss it instead of running away. Colton growing impatient, but wearing a smile and teasing her about it instead. Colton holding her tightly as she cried over Joseph ending it with her.

He was there. He was always there. And he was the most dependable thing she knew.

“Colton,” she whispered.

“I'm sorry?” Hollie asked.

“I want to be with Colton,” she pronounced louder. It was amazing the dual emotions she felt as those words evaporated, both fear and relief. It was like she was in high school all over again.

“Well, there you are.” She could hear the smile on Hollie's voice. “You know what you need to do.”

“But I'm scared. How can I trust myself?”

“Skye, if you don't trust yourself, trust in the me that trusts in you.” Hollie sounded on the edge of giddiness, and it made Skylar's heart jump nervously. “You're a good woman. And nothing in this world is going to change that.”

She wanted to believe that. She wanted to believe that _so_ bad. But she didn't have any guarantees, and that was what she wanted to base her entire love life on. Funny. She was pursuing the life of a musician, one fraught with chance and disappointment, and she _liked_ that about it. It gave her challenges to work through every day of her life. But romance needed to be the steady foundation under her feet, the thing she knew she could depend on when her auditions went wrong and she couldn't find the perfect word for the song she was writing.

Joseph was a guarantee. He would stick by her. He might even marry her. But was 'might' really good enough?

“You there, Skye?”

“Yeah,” she said softly. “Just thinking.” She sighed. “Thinking about the fact that...” Her words slowly died as she opened her eyes and discovered Colton leaned against the wall beside his front door. “...oh, _shit._ ”

“What?” Hollie asked, mildly panicked. “What's wrong?”

“I have to call you back,” she mumbled just before she hung up on her.

Colton was watching her intently. He wore a wife beater and a loose pair of jogging shorts, and his skin was glistening with a fine sheen of sweat. It choked her, the sheer handsomeness of the man only a few feet away from her. He seemed to be waiting for her to speak, breathing hard as he was after his morning jog.

Skylar gulped, dumping her phone into her lap. “How long...have you been standing there?”

“...long enough.”

“Shit,” she whispered. She rubbed at her eyes with a groan. “I can explain.”

“I expect you to.” He wiped the sweat from his brow with his forearm. “I think you and me...need to have a nice, long talk.”

Shitshitshit. “Okay?” Something told her she was about to be a very single woman, maybe for the rest of her life. With her luck, Joseph had been listening on the other side of the door this whole time. “Wh-when?”

“I don't know. I could care less.” And then he pointed at her. “But not until you talk to Joseph.”

“About what?”

“You _know_ what. I'm serious. Call me when you're ready.” He disappeared into his apartment, leaving Skylar to wonder exactly what his hurry was.

Then again, if she'd been the one to hear what Colton had just heard...

The full force of the past ten minutes suddenly crashed down and threatened to suffocate her. Choices. She _hated_ choices. She could pick the man she'd been with for years, the comfortable one, the one who knew all her quirks, whose quirks she knew by heart, and who stuck by her side anyway...

...or she could pick the new man, the one that she felt an almost desperate chemistry with, the one she could sing and pray with, the one who she promised Joseph she had absolutely no feelings for in the first place...

...so she could be loyal.

Or she could be a liar.

Her entire being screamed for her to be dishonest just this once. Her head told her to stick to her guns.

Heart or head?

She curled into a tight ball right there on her welcome mat. And she cried.


	10. Chapter 10

When Skylar finally crept back inside, she heard Joseph brushing his teeth in the bathroom. Jesus, wouldn't it be easy to turn around and run outside and to just pretend she'd made this happen already? Wouldn't it be better?

 _Better for now,_ she thought. _But definitely not in the long run._

But who could say she was even going to _have_ a long run? At this rate, she'd ruin everything good and perfect in her life and end up moving to Bangkok and changing her name and shaving her head and dying alone in a desert. She was just that lucky.

She cast a longing look at the door. But as she did, she saw Colton's face just before he walked away from her only minutes before. She wished she could read it. All she could remember was his flushed cheeks, his parted lips, his wide eyes, his...

God, did he actually want this to happen? Because he'd seemed awfully desperate to get away from her, as if he was in a proper panic.

She sat on the edge of her bed and dragged her hands through her hair, her fingers catching in sleepy tangles. No, maybe he didn't want to be with her at all. Maybe he was pulling the best-guy-friend approach, one tinged right now with Christian overtones. Maybe he was just trying to help her do the right thing, because he was Colton and that was what Colton did.

She'd meant it when she told Hollie she was a mess. Skylar was dang good at keeping a brave face on, at acting like there wasn't anything going on under the surface, but when she paused for a second – just one damn second – it all caught up to her. And she was left feeling as crummy as she did right now. She dug her nails into her scalp and sighed.

Well. Sitting here and thinking about it wasn't going to make her decision any easier, was it?

“Hey, Skye?” Joseph called.

Skylar's eyes slid shut. “Yeah?”

“I was thinking you and I could go get some breakfast, you know? Anywhere good around here?”

She felt sick. “Joe...”

“I remember reading somewhere about this Pancake Pantry place? Now, just how crazy good are these pancakes?”

“Joe.”

He poked his head around the corner, cocking a brow. “What?”

She held his gaze. She held it firmly, even when it felt like there was acid devouring her stomach. “...can we just...can you come sit down for a second?”

He stared at her. And then he quietly sighed and vanished back into the bathroom. “Yeah, gimme just a second.”

She couldn't very well hurry him up. No one ever wanted this moment to come, the moment where they themselves became the bad guy and broke somebody's heart. Joe had already been here once, she realized, and he'd been willing to give it a second shot. How fun was it going to be for him to realize that maybe he'd been right in the first place?

Joseph wandered back into the room and sat on the edge of her bed. He didn't touch her. He didn't even look at her. He simply leaned forward and planted his elbows on his knees and waited.

“...I think we should-”

“You know, you could've just saved the both of us a lot of trouble a few months ago,” he murmured.

Skylar pressed her fingers into her temples. “You don't even know what I'm going to say.”

“What you're gonna say? Seriously, Skye?” Joseph scoffed. “You've done nothing but talk about Colton Dixon the whole damn time you've been down here in Nashville. You think I don't know what's going on?”

Her cheeks flushed an angry red. “This isn't about Colton.”

“Bullshit!” he snapped. “Complete and utter horseshit.”

She bit her tongue before she could spit acid all over him. She hid her eyes in her hands instead.

“How do you think it feels, Skye? How do you think it feels, sitting there listening to your girlfriend talk more about some guy more than she talks about herself? More than she talks about you?”

She repressed the anger. She let the shame and the hurt bury her until she didn't know which way was up.

“I knew this would happen when you came up with this crazy idea in the first place. A girl doesn't move a few hundred miles away from her boyfriend with another guy unless she's tired of him.”

“That wasn't it, and you know it.”

“Do I?” Joseph barked out a harsh, unforgiving laugh. “No. No, I know a hell of a lot more.” She heard him scoot forward, and she peeked out from behind her hands. “Did you kiss him?”

“Joe-”

“You slept with him, didn't you?”

Her hand registered the slap before her brain did. Skylar jerked herself to her feet as Joseph, head whipped toward the wall, began to breathe heavily. “How dare you,” Skylar snarled. He didn't respond. “No, seriously, how DARE you! I'm better than that, and you KNOW I am!”

“How did I-”

“If I didn't sleep with you after almost four years, I'm sure as hell not gonna sleep with him the first time I'm alone with him. Know why? Because I got principles. I'm not gonna cheat on my boyfriend.”

Joseph came to his feet too. He threw his duffel bag on her bed and started around the room, gathering his clothes.

“Where are you going?” she snapped.

“I'm out of here. No reason to stay here with a girl like you.”

“A girl like me?! Tell me, Joe, what kind of girl AM I?”

He glared at her with such anger that she shrank back a step. “You're a liar, that's who you are.”

That time, she couldn't respond back.

“You're not breaking up with me because of whatever going on between us. You're breaking up with me because you like Colton, whether or not you've kissed him or slept with him. I'm right, aren't I?”

Skylar flinched. She looked down at the ground.

Joseph exhaled sharply. “I knew it. God, I was a sap.” He walked past her into the bathroom.

Skylar leaned against her wall, dragging her hand through her hair and closing her eyes as tightly as she could. The funny part was that, at the bottom of it all, Joseph was right. She was a liar. She'd lied to him for several months of their relationship. She didn't ever bring up any of the feelings she was having, not once. And now she found herself thinking back on them and wondering if this could have been prevented. If she had been up front and honest with Joseph in the first place, could he have handled it? Would he have fallen into a raging jealousy? Or would he have understood her attraction and helped her through it?

If she had told Joseph about her slowly developing feelings for Colton, would she be down here in Nashville right now, her music career still floundering, her only friend a guy she wanted to kiss and kiss and kiss until they were both senseless? Or would she be back home, going to college beside Joseph, maybe even engaged?

When he came back out of the bathroom, toothbrush and toothpaste in hand, Skylar was on her verge of tears. And she knew she couldn't let it end like this. She had to either speak up or let her guilt hunt her down when she was trying to sleep that night.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered.

“What?”

“I-I'm sorry,” she said a little louder. As much as it hurt, she made herself look at him. He was blurry from the tears, but maybe that was okay. “You're right. I lied to you. I told you I didn't feel anything for him, and...that was wrong. And you deserved better. And I'm sorry.”

Joseph stared at her for a long moment before he sighed and tossed his toiletries into his bag. “You broke my heart today, Skye.”

“I know I did,” she gurgled through her tears.

“And it was a shitty thing to do.”

Skylar nodded.

“So I've got one thing to say.” He held up his index finger. “...don't do it to him.”

The floodgates opened and tears poured down her cheeks. She buried her face in her hands and let the sobs go, ugly and disgusting as they were. She only stopped with a gasp when she heard the front door shut. Joseph was gone.

How was she supposed to take that? A peace treaty? Acceptance about why she broke up with him in the first place? A cruel sentence to remind her of just the kind of woman she was, just the kind of girlfriend she always would be?

The tears were stunned into silence for the moment. And she had something to do.

The walk across the way was the longest journey in her life. Every step was heavy. Every foot was a mile. She felt like she should be dancing to Colton's door, maybe smiling, but she couldn't manage it.

If Skylar had just had that rough and messy of a break-up, could she honestly think that God was going to smile on her and reward her with the man she'd been eying for every moment over the past year? He was a just God, and He hadn't hesitated to punish people in the past if they deserved it.

She stopped in front of his door, aware that he had touched this doorknob, that he had breathed this air, that at this very moment he was waiting for her to arrive. She shivered, even in this ridiculous humidity. It was hard to be this infinitely aware of another person.

When she knocked, her first impulse was to jump into the hedges before he could come outside and catch her, but even if she HAD been that crazy, it would've been a lost cause. He answered the door in seconds, as if he'd been waiting for her in the entryway the whole time.

The air around him hit her in a rush, one that took her breath away. His hair was wet and freshly combed, and he smelled amazing. Fresh. CLEAN. He'd come straight home from his jog and showered.

Maybe it was the fact that she was a single woman now, or maybe that her hormones were ridiculously out of control, but he was affecting her now more than ever. Just the thought that he'd slipped into the shower, maybe with her on his mind...

“Hi,” he said.

She shook the cobwebs out of her head. Sure, they might be holding her thoughts and feelings from the past few hours at bay, but they weren't conducive to whatever this conversation was going to be like. “Hey.”

He gave her a weak smile. “You move fast.” When she looked away, he hesitated. “You...you DID take care of everything, right?”

Her cheeks flushed in a certain degree of shame. “I broke up with Joe, if that's what you mean.”

She heard the breath leave him in one solid rush. “Seriously?”

She snapped her eyes up to meet his. “Yeah.”

“Whoa.” He rubbed the back of his neck. She watched a fat bead of water slide down his neck, escaping from his hair.

“What?” she asked tentatively, even a little weakly, distracted as she let herself be by the droplet. “I thought...”

“...you thought-”

“I thought that was what you wanted,” she interrupted. Her cheeks were turning beet red and her heart was suddenly plummeting into her ankles. The distraction was fading. All that was left was the dread.

Colton looked away and bit his bottom lip, and Skylar thought she might be sick right on his welcome mat. When he finally said “Why don't you come in?” she felt tears burn her eyes all over again. But Skylar wasn't anything if not a trooper. She walked into the apartment and held her every emotion at bay as stubbornly as she could.

His clock ticked loudly and heavily in the exact cadence of her steps, a quarter note to her eighth-note feet. As she settled on the edge of Colton's couch, she studiously tried to avoid looking at him. She focused on the more tactile things in the environment: the couch fabric against her legs, the material of her shorts between her fisted fingers, the way her flyaways were tossed around by his ceiling fan. Anything but her slowly mounting horror and the man squatting on the floor across from her, as if he couldn't bear to even sit beside her.

There was a long silence. Skylar glanced up and watched him finger his crucifix slowly, thoughtfully, as if it held all the secrets to life within it. When she couldn't stand the ridiculous pretense anymore, she spoke. “I made a mistake, didn't I?”

Colton met her eyes, startled.

“I made a mistake, and now I screwed everything up, just like I thought. Jesus. Great job, Skylar.” She scoffed and came to her feet, roughly wiping any traces of tears from her eyes.

“Hey now-”

“Don't worry, Colton, I'm gonna let myself out. It's no big deal. We don't have to talk about it.” But even as she stumbled toward the door, she felt a deep sense of dissatisfaction, of confusion, and, beneath it all, of anger. He was just gonna let her walk out that door, wasn't he? He was gonna keep his mouth shut and let her go. How could he do that? She whirled around to face him, flinging her arms into the air. “Why the hell'd you even invite me in?!”

He lowered his head, his back still to her, and stared at the ground.

“Why're you gonna be all 'Oh, yeah, no problem, we can fix this, we can talk about it, we can pretend nothing ever happened in the first place' when you sure as hell know that's not gonna happen? For God's sake, Colton! I just broke up with my boyfriend for you!”

When he shot to his feet, Skylar stumbled back a step, eyes widening as he met her gaze with a fire burning in his own. “You know, just for the record, I didn't ASK you to do that.”

“You told me to 'take care of it,'” she snapped. “Sorry, I guess your real meaning was a little lost in translation there. I didn't know I was supposed to just ignore you and go marry him or something.”

“I wanted you to figure it out!” He smacked the back of his hand into his palm, the clean snap of skin-on-skin emphasizing his words. “To make a choice instead of just teetering around in the middle, pretending you could have us both-”

“I never said I wanted-”

“Oh, no, you didn't SAY anything! You just let your actions speak for themselves!”

She glared at him and took a step forward in righteous indignation. “I didn't do a damn thing wrong. I didn't cheat on Joseph with you.”

“You kissed me!” he shouted.

“When Joe and I were split!”

“And then you just got back with him? Like it didn't mean anything?!”

“It did! It meant something!”

He matched her step with one of his own, looming over her, casting a shadow over her. “And what was that? That you couldn't make up your mind?”

She backed down, teeth clenched, chest heaving, and raked her fingers through her hair as she paced away from him. She couldn't think when she was that close to him. She didn't know if she was supposed to hit him or kiss him. God sure knew she felt like doing both right then. “It wasn't that easy, Colton.”

“Love isn't easy,” he said, his voice heated. “It never is.”

She shook her head. “It was damn easy until I met you.”

Colton fell quiet, and Skylar kept her back to him as she locked her fingers together and cradled the back of her neck. It was true. It was so damn true. Being with Joe was perfect for so long. She was comfortable with him. He cherished her. Everything made sense when she was with him. And then Idol happened. Idol, and Colton, and distance, and everything she thought she was strong enough to handle.

“How was I supposed to be with you,” she murmured, “when you were the first man that made me question myself. My relationship. My faith.”

“Your faith?” he asked softly.

She sighed. “In the Bible, Joseph met that guy's wife. She wanted him. She was beautiful. How could he resist her, right? You see that plot in a movie these days, you know those two are gonna screw each other before you're even an hour in. But Joseph didn't give in. Even when she grabbed him, when she started trying to take off his clothes, he turned tail and ran and left his coat behind in his hurry. And God favored him for it, eventually.” She tilted her head back and stared at the ceiling. “He didn't give in. But so many others did. And man, they got massively screwed over. David. Solomon. All of them. So what's the lesson?” Her eyes slid shut. “You resist the temptation, or you're gonna be punished, because God said He'd never tempt us with more than we could handle.”

He was silent again. He was waiting, she realized. That was so like him, wasn't it, just to shut up and wait until she'd figured everything out. God, she hated him. She hated him and loved him with such ferocity right now that she couldn't decide which was stronger.

“I wasn't Joseph,” she murmured. “I was David. I watched you like you were Bathsheba, and I wanted you so bad. And just like him, I didn't just accept that I was supposed to be with Joe. I decided I'd go after you anyway. And once I had you, I went right back to Joe, didn't I? Because I'd done the test wrong. I went with you instead of sticking by the man I swore I loved.” She chuckled wryly and embraced the bitterness to her heart. “But if a man like you was just a temptation...a good man, someone who loved everybody, who wanted to help the world, who kept his cool when it mattered, who loved God with every fiber of your being...then how could I believe that God would make someone like you, someone who fit every single guideline for a man I've ever had, and leave me to pine for you, for the temptation that you were?”

He didn't say a word.

“Jesus, I don't think I'm even making any sense,” she whispered in a degree of disgust. She rubbed her eyes again, tears beginning to fall freely. “I was stupid to think you'd wanna be with a girl like me. I got it wrong. I'm sorry.”

His arms came around her so suddenly from behind that she jumped and gasped, but he wrapped his arms tightly around her and wouldn't let her jump away. “You didn't get anything wrong,” he murmured, pressing a soft kiss to the top of her head. “Not a thing.”

“What? But I...but you said-”

“I wanted to know that you were sure this time.”

Her shaking fingers tentatively wrapped around his arms in a loose embrace. “How do you know I'm sure?”

“Because this isn't some experiment to you now. There are hearts on the line, and you can see that.” He kissed her head again, lingering near, his breath warm and dizzying against her hair. “Because you're trying to figure everything out now instead of just playing games. You're trying to make sure you're doing it right.” His hand drifted up to ghost against her neck, drawing a shiver down her spine. “And this time, you ended it with him, not the other way around. You screwed your chance of having a back-up plan. For me. All for me.” His voice sounded thicker suddenly, warmer, huskier, and she instinctively pressed back against him with a shuddering breath. He stiffened, arms locking around her so tightly that she could barely breathe, and then just as quickly he released her and took a few steps back.

When she spun around to look at him, she saw his dilated pupils and the strain in his body and felt an answering warmth stir in her body, one that seared her skin and pooled right at the bottom of her stomach. “...Colton-”

“Just give me a second.” He touched his fist to his lips for a moment and turned away from her, taking another two steps. His shoulders grew tense for a long moment, and then he exhaled sharply and relaxed completely. “Jesus, Skylar.”

“I'm sorry,” she said quickly.

“Don't be sorry.” He answered so quickly, so fervently, that she began to giggle, and he glanced over his shoulder. He grinned at her like an awkward teenaged boy and chuckled. “Don't you dare apologize for that.”

“For what?” she teased.

His eyes flared again, and for a moment his grin turned slightly wolfish, but he shook his head and laughed again. When they'd both calmed, falling into silence, he met her eyes once more, and there was a fervid spark in them that made her keep her mouth shut. “I want to do this right this time.”

She nodded in response.

“I want us to...take things slowly. Take it one day at a time.” He slowly cocked an eyebrow. “Keep some boundaries for a while.”

Her body thrummed with impatience. “We've known each over for a year and a half, almost two years-”

“That doesn't give us an invitation to start making out on my couch tomorrow.” Colton bit his bottom lip, gathering his thoughts. “We have a...monstrous chemistry, Skylar. But I don't wanna push faster than we should. If we go somewhere we're not ready for, it could screw everything up.”

A light came on in her head. “I don't wanna mess this thing up,” she softly sang. “I don't wanna push too far.”

He nodded. “Exactly.”

“Are you speaking from personal experience?” she asked.

“No,” he murmured, shaking his head. “But that's because...I hadn't met someone I thought I could really bare myself to before you.”

Her heart swelled in her chest, and she gave him a bright smile.

“I just...I've waited this long to be with you, Skylar.” He shrugged. “What's another few days before we kiss? What's another few months before we make out?”

“What's another few months when you're meant to be?” she asked softly.

Colton's eyes sparkled. When he opened his arms to her, she walked into them gratefully and held him close, burying her face in his shirt. She breathed in the scent of him and turned her head, feeling the coolness of his crucifix necklace pressing against her cheek.

It was funny. Seconds ago she would have said that she couldn't wait to kiss him, to touch him, to hold him so close that she couldn't remember whose limbs were whose. But now that she was here, tucked in his arms, she realized she was wrong. She could stand anything as long as she had this.


End file.
